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The Structure of “L'Éducation Sentimentale” and “Der Grüne Heinrich”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

It should not be inappropriate to compare two contemporary novels of approximately the following description: One novel relates the disillusions of a young provincial in Paris, the other the disillusions of a small-town man in Munich. The two novels center around the historic period of 1848. The two heroes have literary and artistic gifts, but prove more or less failures. Each of the two young men becomes interested in four women and each is incapable of making a definite choice for himself. Each fights a duel, exactly in the middle of the novel, and nobody knows exactly why. The two novels give practically complete life-stories of the extravagant heroes, and give into the bargain a full—if sometimes disguised—account of the authors' views on painting, literature, philosophy, religion, and politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 1941 , pp. 249 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1941

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References

Note 1 in page 249 There exists, however, a pair of common ancestors, Rousseau and Goethe. The Confessions, which formed part of Flaubert's heritage, are connected with Keller by W. H. Faulkner: “Der grüne Heinrich and predecessors in Rousseau's Confessions,” U. of Virginia Publications (1912). Goethe, the nearest ancestor to Keller, is connected with Flaubert by Léon Degoumois: Flaubert à l'école de Goethe (1925); also by V. Luglio: Due Francesi (“Flaubert . . . L'esempio di Wilhelm Meister”), (Firenze, 1933).

Note 2 in page 250 The following chapters: i, 2; 13; i, 15; iv, 14; 16; Gesammelte Werke, ed. Carl Enders, [Reclam, 1922], vols, i and ii).

Note 3 in page 250 L'Education sentimentale, “édition définitive” (Paris: Bibliothèque-Charpentier, 1909), pp. 46, 49, 59, 64, 145, 361.

Note 4 in page 250 Pp. 183, 263, 325, 392, 489.

Note 5 in page 250 Especially pp. 356, 443, 450, 507.

Note 6 in page 250 On indoor- and outdoor-theatre, i, 11, ii, 13; on novel reading, i, 12; on Schiller, i, 2; Goethe, iii, 1; Ariosto, iii, 6; Angelus Silesius, iv, 12.

Note 7 in page 250 Chapters i, 3–6; ii, 11–12; iii, 14; iv, 1; 2; 12.

Note 8 in page 250 E.g., p. 17, Platon, Malebranche, les Ecossais; p. 167, Fourier, St.-Simon, Comte; p. 169, Malthus; p. 217 Rousseau et la philanthropie, l'Absolu; p. 257, Quinet, Maistre, le Spiritualisme; p. 443, Leroux; p. 474, spiritualisme, transmigration des âmes.

Note 9 in page 251 P. 518.

Note 10 in page 251 P. 72

Note 11 in page 251 P. 509.

Note 12 in page 251 P. 464.

Note 13 in page 251 Pp. 297, 487.

Note 14 in page 251 P. 480.

Note 15 in page 251 Pp. 278, 419, 516.

Note 16 in page 251 That those subjects are discussed and how discreetly they are discussed, in L'Education, becomes clear even to a superficial observer by a comparison with Madame Bovary, where there are no such reflections, where everything is story, and with Bouvard et Pécuchet, where such reflections are stark and predominant.

Note 17 in page 251 St.-René Taillandier, Rev. Deux Mondes (15 déc. 1869), p. 989.

Note 18 in page 251 E.g., in the “édition définitive” of 1909: 125, 225, 175 pp.

Note 19 in page 252 E.g., in “Gesammelte Werke,” ed. Enders: 200, 190, 250, 260 pp.

Note 20 in page 254 B. Seuffert, “Beobachtungen über dichterische Komposition,” German.-Roman. Monatsschrift (1909), pp. 607–617.

Note 21 in page 254 Ibid., p. 616.

Note 22 in page 254 J. Körner, “Der Grüne Heinrich,” Zeits. f. Deutschkunde (1921), pp. 513–531.

Note 23 in page 254 Ibid., p. 526.

Note 24 in page 257 J. Körner, loc. cit., p. 526: “Freilich hat es nicht am Tadel gefehlt, daβ ein Übermaβ der Episoden die einfachen Linien des Bauplans verwirre; aber wenn der Dichter bei Umarbeitung seines Werkes diese Übung nicht bloβ festhielt, sondern durch Aufnahme neuer Episoden noch verstärkte, so ist damit die Absichtlichkeit solcher Architektonik dargetan.”

Note 25 in page 257 Emil Ermatinger, G. Kellers Briefe und Tagebücher 1861–1890 (1919, 4th ed.), p. 130.

Note 26 in page 257 Ibid., p. 160.

Note 27 in page 257 Ibid., p. 257.

Note 28 in page 257 Ibid., p. 268.

Note 29 in page 258 Ibid., p. 272.