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NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
Semgallen Revisited
Margot Paterson
SUMMARY: Published anonymously in 1778 the novel Lebensläufe in
aufsteigender Linie has been attributed to Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel.
Through an examination of contemporary accounts it will be shown how
this has come about, as the true author of this work is the dramatist
Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751-92).
CHAPTER ONE provides a summary of a novel that F. J. Jacobi hailed as
"a German masterpiece". At its simplest Lebensläufe is a Bildungsroman
describing the coming of age of a middle class character Alexander and
his confrontation with love and death (in the shape of Mine). It is
composed of childhood memories, letters, and diary extracts narrated by
a "poet" of whom nothing is known except what he chooses to write
about. At its most complex Lebensläufe is a series of recollections
interspersed with internal monologues. Problems are unresolved and the
ending is without conclusion.
CHAPTER TWO places the text in its appropriate historical environment:
the Duchy of Courland and Semgallen. It will be shown how Lenz
constantly mixes poetry and truth and how he draws upon his own
biography and especially upon his mother's Polish-Lithuanian ancestry.
CHAPTER THREE compares the novel's main theme and characters with
similar ideas and characters in Lenz's other works: his poems, dramas
and prose pieces. This shows the extent to which Lebensläufe is an
integral part of his artistic universe. The narrator's reflections
correspond closely to Lenz's preoccupation with the nature of language,
romantic subjectivity, aesthetic self-fashioning and, not least, with
Kant's transcendental metaphysics.
CHAPTER FOUR concerns Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel. It questions the
evidence on which his presumed authorship has come to be based; his
letters to his fellow freemason Johann Scheffner, E. T. A. Hoffmann's
letters to his nephew, and Hippel's autobiography. It will emerge that
these sources are seriously flawed. The discrepancies between Hippel's
modest literary endeavours and that of a novel he is held to have
written will be made clear. The polemic Hippel directed against Johann
Zimmermann is especially relevant to the discussion.
CONCLUSION: Lenz should finally be credited with what is undoubtedly
his work. His closeness to Kant, Herder and Goethe makes it all the
more urgent to have his brilliant and unique novel brought to the
attention of a wider readership.
Semgallen Revisited can be ordered from Ridge End Publishing at Ridge
End, 36 Cotman Road, Norwich NR1 4AF, UK, [log in to unmask]
Cost: £ Sterling 12 or EURO 20 including p+p.
ISBN 0-9545806-0-5
HB 210x148 mm p.192 includes bibliography and index.
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