The German Gothic Novel in Anglo-German Perspective

597 Pages·2013·5.94 MB·English

by  Patrick Bridgwater

The German Gothic Novel
in Anglo-German Perspective
165 Internationale Forschungen zur
Allgemeinen und
Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft
Begründet von Alberto Martino und in Verbindung mit
Francis Claudon (Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne) – Rüdiger Görner
(Queen Mary, University of London) – Achim Hölter (Universität Wien) –
Klaus Ley (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) – John A. McCarthy
(Vanderbilt University) – Alfred Noe (Universität Wien) – Manfred Pfister
(Freie Universität Berlin) – Sven H. Rossel (Universität Wien)
herausgegeben von
Norbert Bachleitner
(Universität Wien)
Redaktion: Paul Ferstl und Rudolf Pölzer
Anschrift der Redaktion:
Institut für Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Sensengasse 3A , A-1090 Wien
The German Gothic Novel
in Anglo-German Perspective
Patrick Bridgwater
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013
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Die Reihe “Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden
Literaturwissenschaft” wird ab dem Jahr 2005 gemeinsam von Editions
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From 2005 onward, the series “Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen
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ISBN: 978-90-420-3741-0
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0992-2
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013
Printed in The Netherlands
Table of Contents
Preface 7
Acknowledgements 9
Chronology 11
Introduction 21
Part I
1 Goethe 49
2 Veit Weber 83
3 Benedicte Naubert 115
4 Schiller 147
5 Grosse and Tieck 191
6 Heinrich von Kleist 243
7 Bonaventura 275
8 E.T.A. Hoffmann 309
9 Alexis and Meinhold 339
Part II
10 The Vehmgericht or Secret Tribunal 381
11 Hues of Villainy 411
12 Anglo-German Interactions 439
13 A Gothic Iconography 501
14 Gothic and Märchen 541
Bibliography 591
Index 597
PREFACE
Gothic fiction being a European phenomenon that is best read in a supra-
national way, this book was initially conceived as a study of Anglo-German
interactions in the sphere of Gothic fiction. However, it soon became clear
that there was a prior and more fundamental need for a work that would
identify the main German Gothic novelists and assess their contribution to
the Gothic canon. Research into German-language Gothic has long been
hindered by the fact that there is no agreement among German critics as to
what, if anything, constitutes the German Gothic novel, for which their
language has no clear name, let alone a bibliography. When to this is added
the German disdain for the popular novel, the need to start from scratch is
obvious. My subject is therefore the German Gothic novel and its major
subsets and practitioners, together with a number of associated subjects,
which include Anglo-German interactions in the field, but also the
Vehmgericht or ‘secret tribunal’, Frà Diavolo, the Nachtwachen of Bonaventura,
Gothic iconography, and the interrelationship of Gothic and Märchen. The
emphasis is on the real Gothic novelists, more than half of whom are not
the pop novelists of the day but major writers of the Romantic generation
whose Gothic alter egos have been swept under the carpet of history as
being somehow disreputable. The German contribution to the Gothic novel
has gone unrecognized for so long not least because its authors are for the
most part not the forgotten foot-soldiers, who deserve to remain forgotten,
but major writers who had all along been standing in the foreground
wearing canonical hats that - like the proverbial Tarnkappe (cap of
invisibility) - rendered them invisible.
The main German novelists discussed here are Bonaventura, J. W. v.
Goethe, C. Grosse, W. Häring [ps. Willibald Alexis]. E. T. A. Hoffmann, K.
F. Kahlert [ps. Lorenz Flammenberg], H. v. Kleist, W. Meinhold, C. B. E.
Naubert, J. C. F. Schiller, L. Tieck, C. Tschink, C. A. Vulpius, G. P. L. L.
Wächter [ps. Veit Weber], and H. Zschokke. When these novelists and the
various types of novel with which they are associated are studied together
for the first time, the magnitude of the German conribution to European
Gothic is revealed. For two hundred years and more German Gothic has
been said to be influenced by English, and vice versa, but since many
English scholars ignore German literature, and most German scholars
ignore Gothic, the real state of affairs has largely gone unexplored. The idea
that the main kinds of German Gothic novel were fundamentally indebted
to elements that had been supplied by the English Gothicists is shown to be
8 The German Gothic Novel in Anglo-German Perspective
unsustainable. In major aspects of Gothic fiction it was German writers who
made the running.
The first full-length study of the outstanding German contributors to the
Gothic canon, this is an original historical and comparative study that goes
well beyond the necessary review of the evidence to include much new
material, many new insights and pieces of analysis, and some fundamental
changes of perspective. It also shows how close Anglo-German literary
relations were for a decade and a half (1794-1806) when both language areas
were busy producing their own and translating the other’s Gothic novels.
Intended to put the record straight in bibliographical and literary historical
terms, and to act as a reference guide to facilitate future research (hence the
lengthy critical apparatus), the book is addressed to scholars and students of
German, so that German quotations are given in German, but English
translations are added for the convenience of English and American
scholars and students of Gothic, who represent another important section
of the books’s target audience.
Part of the material on De Quincey and Alexis first appeared, in a
different form, in my De Quincey’s Gothic Masquerade (Amsterdam & New
York: Rodopi, 2004). Part of the material on Wilhelm Meinhold first
appeared in a wider context in my Anglo-German Interactions in the Literature of
the 1890s (Oxford: Legenda, 1999), to which this is in part a prequel. Part of
the material on Friedrich first appeared in an article entitled ‘Friedrichian
Images in Expressionist Art’ in Oxford German Studies (31: 2002). An early
version of the essay on Kleist and Gothic appeared in Oxford German Studies
(38: 2010).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to Professor Jim Reed for casting a wise critical eye over my
Goethe and Schiller chapters, and to the many colleagues, past and present,
whose work is acknowledged in the footnotes, not least among them the late
Professor Alan Menhennet, whose inaugural lecture first alerted me to
German Gothic, and to all the librarians (in Oxford, Göttingen and
Hamburg) who have been unfailingly helpful. In particular I thank Jill
Hughes and colleagues of the Taylor Institution Library, Oxford, which has
been my spiritual home for more years than I care to remember.
CHRONOLOGY
The English and German Gothic Novel and their Translations
together with other key dates
1704-17
Les mille et une nuits, tr. Antoine Galland(6 vols)
1730
Die Tausend und Eine Nacht, tr. from Galland by August Bohse [Ps. Talander]
(6 vols)
1742-5
Young, Night Thoughts
1743
Blair, The Grave
1746-7
Hervey, Meditations among the Tombs; Contemplations on the Night
1750
Walpole begins to gothicize his villa at Strawberry Hill
1753
Smollett, Ferdinand Count Fathom
Bond, An Essay on the Incubus, or Nightmare
1754
Gleichmann, Bewundernswürdige Begebenheiten des Europäischen Herkuliskus
1757
Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful
1760
Mid-eighteenth century Gothic design in England (Chippendale) and France
1760-71
Young, tr. Ebert, Klagen oder Nachtgedanken über Leben, Tod und Unsterblichkeit
1762
Leland, Thomas Longsword, Earl of Salisbury