Depiction of Music in Eichendorff’s Das Marmorbild and Grillparzer’s Der Arme Spielmann
Regarding to German literature, novellas play a great role in literary movements starting from 19th century. From romanticism to naturalism the novella show an alteration in the style. Yet almost does not change its original characteristic, which is the “Wendepunkt.” Considering the characteristics of the novellas, this paper aims to make a comparison between Eichendorff’s Das Marmorbild and Grillparzer’s Der Arme Spielmann of both novellas and along with the comparison, the depiction and the importance of the music in both short stories will be stated.
According to Bennet, the romantic novella intends to introduce the element of the strange and unusual under a appaernce. Mainly the irreational element is seen under the aspect of the supernatural. Moreover, there is less a struggle against the irrational and the resistance of self agains determination which is to say, the enemy is welcomed and made an ally. Shortly, novella is concerned with the irrational elements in life whose poetic task is to give form to the unaccountable element of chance in its effect upon the human character (Bennet, 1961: 57 – 49)
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff is considered as one of the famous writer of the German romanticism, who published considerable works and novellas such as Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts and Das Marmorbild. As a romanticism author his texts mainly deals with nature and love and irrational elements. On the contrary to a romantic writer, Franz Grillparzer is also a successful realist writer, who often seen as a “national poet”, with important works such as König Ottakars Glück und Ende and Der Arme Spielmann.
Das Marmorbild is fairy tale novella, which portrays the strange incident of a man called Florio, who falls in love with a statue of Venus. Where at the end, it comes out that the situation Florio is in was actually a curse. The novella hence, can be considered as the tradition of the statues. There is an image of “Bild” in Florio’s mind as he idealises everything into image. Regarding to the style of narration and the irrationality of characters such as Venus, it is realised that the novella fits into the Romantic Movement as the feelings and emotions are more important than logic and experience.
Hamilton suggests that in the story Florio meets with two female characters representing the two distinctive poles as Venus is portrayed as a dangerously seductive figure that threatened to drag him to an unredeemed death whereas, Bianka is an innocent virgin girls who aims a marriage. In addition to this, these characters are escorted with two other male figures, “the deathly pale and imprudent knight Donati” and the “good- natured Fortunato” (Hamilton, 2009:200-2004).
Music is a crucial factor in the story, as songs are represented in a way that, feelings, thoughts and the events, which are going to occur, are told through the songs, which are written like poems in the story and moreover they have power such as breaking a spell. For instance, through the end of the book, Fortunato’s song summarises all the curse and situation and as they ride back from Lucca.
[…] Da in den lichten Räumen
Erwacht das Menschenkind,
Und schüttelt böses Träumen
V on seinem Haupt geschwind.
Und, wie die Lerche singend,
Aus schwülen Zaubers Kluft
Erhebt die Seele ringend
Sich in die Morgenluft.
Hamilton also claims that Fortunato is actually represented as a liberator, as in his first song he sings:
Was will ich noch hoffen?
Hinauf, ach hinauf!
Der Himmel ist offen,
Nimm, Vater, mich auf!
Considering the importance of the songs in the story, it is clear that they form up a more lyrical way of depicting the events and thoughts as poems in prose forms. With regard to this, Bennet claims that Eichendorff could be seen as the most lyrical writers in Romantic Novella and hence Das Marmorbild could be considered as a masterpiece of his narrative works. He suggests also that he is the most original of the romantic writers because he is very good at presenting the lyrical moods. (Bennet, 1961:72-74)
According to Hamilton, music works as a metaphor for a holistic theory of human existence in the Eichendorff’s works which cannot be reduced to rationality and although in his work music tend to overpower the subjectivity, it operates more as a means to check an overly arrogant egocentricity. In addition to this, the liberation of music for Eichendorff from its material source occurs only through some element of human or artistic activity (Hamilton 2009:. From a different point of view, Bennet suggests that Eichedorff’s music discloses that intellectual distinctions and the metaphor of music makes the reader to maintain the complex structure of human existence without choosing for one pole over another. Furthermore, sensuality, which allows poetry to be alive, enables poetry to be meaningful (Bennet, 1961:68).
Starting from the 19th century, German writers step into a new movement, which is called realism. Franz Grillparzer is one of the well-known writers of German realism. His famous work Der Arme Spielmann is mainly about a poor musician, who is actually noble. The story is depicted through the observations of a noble man, who is interested in learning more about the poor musicians life. Hence, this interest in the poor musician’s life, leads a remarkable comparison of social classes, which could be seen as a characteristics of the realism. Like many other examples of the genre, Grillparzer’s novella is structured around a form of framework narration, or ‘Rahmenerza ̈hlung’, in which an internal story (usually the real focus of the text) is told in the context of an event or encounter in the larger narrative. In Grillparzer’s text the eponymous central character ‘der arme Spielmann’ himself recounts the story of his life, especially how he has come to earn his living as a street musician on popular occasions, to the external narrator.
Grillparzer’s Der arme Spielmann anticipates one of the central insights of German realism, which distinguishes that realism from its European counterparts. That is the recognition, expressed most forcefully by Franz Werfel, that what we call ‘realism’ can also be a literature of inwardness.
In addition to this social class comparison in the story, the concrete idea of music and art in the society is also criticised in the story. Jakob, the poor musician first cannot play the violin when he was a child. However, then he realises that he could play his own music as he feels.
[…] So hatten sie mir die Musik, die jetzt die Freude und zugleich der Stab meines Lebens ist, geradezu verhaßt gemacht. Wenn ich abends im Zwielicht die Violine ergriff, um mich nach meiner Art ohne Noten zu vergnügen, nahmen sie mir das Instrument und sagten, das verdirbt die Applikatur, klagten über Ohrenfolter und verwiesen mich auf die Lehrstunde, wo die Folter für mich anging. Ich habe zeitlebens nichts und niemand so gehaßt, als ich damals die Geige haßte.
According to Birrell, music provides the single enduring value of Jakob’s life and it makes Jakob’s isolation from other people obvious. In addition to this, his music is unusual that technical appreciation of the music is necessary if one grasps both its deliberate validity and its striking lack of meaning (Birrell, 1984:558). Despite all the absurd melodies he plays, he expresses himself with the understanding of musical vocabulary and thus he perceives himself as the harmony of God.
It is stated at the beginning of the book that, no one was giving money to him because he was playing something very unusual that sounds like a chaotic melody whereas others were earning much more, as they were playing something suitable to the festive spirit such as Mozart or Beethoven. However, there is one crucial factor, which makes the reader bethink that how could a musician be so self confident in the crowd and play something abnormal for them.
[…] Barhäuptig und kahlköpfig stand er da, nach Art dieser Leute, den Hut als Sammelbüchse vor sich auf dem Boden, und so bearbeitete er eine alte vielzersprungene Violine, wobei er den Takt nicht nur durch Aufheben und Niedersetzen des Fußes, sondern zugleich durch übereinstimmende Bewegung des ganzen gebückten Körpers markierte. Aber all diese Bemühung, Einheit in seine Leistung zu bringen, war fruchtlos, denn was er spielte, schien eine unzusammenhängende Folge von Tönen ohne Zeitmaß und Melodie. Dabei war er ganz in sein Werk vertieft: die Lippen zuckten, die Augen waren starr auf das vor ihm befindliche Notenblatt gerichtet ja wahrhaftig Notenblatt!
Walker asserts that Grillparzer’s text thematises especially the main conflict between an inherited idea of art as real and immediate presence and the actuality of modern experience. The main idea of the story is actually, to convey the meaning of the representational and non- representational form of art and music considering the situations of that time. However, his work does not build an idealised notion of art and he let alone the artist for the redemption of the modern world. Hence, his narrative realism takes the tension between the idea of art and the actual circumstances to forefront. Therefore, Grillparzer aims to thematise the issues, which are inherent in the practice if narrative realism itself. (Walker 2009:546)