Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Introduction
- German Romantic Music Aesthetics
- Responses to Goethe
- Perceptions of Goethe and Schubert
- Goethe's Egmont, Beethoven's Egmont
- A Tale of Two Fausts: An Examination of Reciprocal Influence in the Responses of Liszt and Wagner to Goethe's Faust
- Musical Gypsies and anti-Classical Aesthetics: The Romantic Reception of Goethe's Mignon Character in Brentano's Die mehreren Wehmüller und ungarische Nationalgesichter
- Sounds of Hoffmann
- Lieder
- Romantic Overtones in Contemporary German Literature
- Notes on the Contributors
- Notes on the Editors
- Index
Musical Gypsies and anti-Classical Aesthetics: The Romantic Reception of Goethe's Mignon Character in Brentano's Die mehreren Wehmüller und ungarische Nationalgesichter
from Responses to Goethe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Introduction
- German Romantic Music Aesthetics
- Responses to Goethe
- Perceptions of Goethe and Schubert
- Goethe's Egmont, Beethoven's Egmont
- A Tale of Two Fausts: An Examination of Reciprocal Influence in the Responses of Liszt and Wagner to Goethe's Faust
- Musical Gypsies and anti-Classical Aesthetics: The Romantic Reception of Goethe's Mignon Character in Brentano's Die mehreren Wehmüller und ungarische Nationalgesichter
- Sounds of Hoffmann
- Lieder
- Romantic Overtones in Contemporary German Literature
- Notes on the Contributors
- Notes on the Editors
- Index
Summary
THE IMAGE OF THE GYPSY was a rich source of association that attracted many Romantic writers to lend it their own interpretation. This undeniable fascination with the traditional Gypsy character and lifestyle, which evoked notions of freedom from social norms, disregard for boundaries (both geographical and social), and an apparent closeness to nature, initiated a plethora of literary manifestations of Gypsy characters, particularly in German Romantic literature. In the image of the Gypsy, Romantic artists found a motif that could express a variety of preoccupations. However, the use of musical Gypsies in Brentano's novella Die mehreren Wehmüller und ungarische Nationalgesichter (The Multiple Wehmüllers and Hungarian National Faces, 1817) amounts to more than a Romantic motif; it situates the presentation of the crossroad-dweller character at the writer's own crossroads of literary taste and contemporary aesthetic discourse. Through the use of Gypsy figures and the notions of musicality attributed to them, the portrayal of the brother/sister Gypsy pair Mitidika and Michaly offers an aesthetic counter-argument to Goethe's classical aesthetic discourse. The objective of this paper is to show that Mitidika and Michaly, the musical Gypsies of Brentano's novella, are a criticism of another musical Gypsy, Goethe's “Mignon” figure in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship Years, 1796). Brentano revives Mignon in the form of Mitidika and Michaly, while making a statement in favor of music as the guiding aesthetic principle for literature and art in general.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Music and Literature in German Romanticism , pp. 105 - 120Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004