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The Union of the Arts in Die Braut Von Messina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Robert T. Clark Jr.
Robert T. Clark Jr.*
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University
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Extract

It has been quite some time since the charge that Schiller's Braut von Messina is a fate-tragedy à la Zacharias Werner was completely dismissed. We can also disregard the mixture of mythologies frowned upon by A. W. Schlegel, since in our day mythologies, like universes, threaten to become relative. The idea that the Braut is a pure imitation of the Greek tragedy, and that its dramatist was following Sophocles particularly, has fallen by implication, since attempts to point out the sources have gone down into ignoble failure.

On the other hand, we may today accept the brilliant critical statement of Wilhelm Dilthey, that the Braut is “das Mittelglied zwischen dem antiken Drama und der neuen Form des musikalischen Drama, die Wagner in den Nibelungen schuf.” This idea has been expanded by Josef Nadler, who does not fail to exclaim against the obstinate misinterpretation to which this drama, together with the Jungfrau von Orleans, has consistently been subjected. Nadler sees in the Braut the culmination of a tendency noticeable in the operatic tones of the Jungfrau, a tendency toward the creation of tragedy out of the spirit of music.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 1937 , pp. 1135 - 1146
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937

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References

1 Wilhelm Dilthey, Von deutscher Dichtung und Musik (Leipzig, 1933), p. 451.

2 Josef Nadler, Literaturgeschichte der deutschen Stämme und Landschaften (Regensburg, 1931), iii, 175 ff.

3 Deutsche Rundschau, clxii (1910), 232–262, 400–433, and clxiii (1910), 91–112; reprinted in Vorspiel, ii (1926), 116–237.

4 Herbert Cysarz, Schiller (Halle, 1934), p. 358.

5 Ibid., p. 360.

6 Ibid., p. 363.

7 Dilthey, op. cit., p. 325.

8 An Goethe, 2. Okt. 1797.

9 Cf. Kurt May, Lessings und Herders kunsttheoretiscke Gedanken in ihrem Zusammenhang, “Germanische Studien,” xxv (Berlin, 1923), 58 f.

10 Lessing, Sämmtliche Schriften, ed. Lachmann-Muncker (Stuttgart, 1893), ix, 22 f.

11 Idem.

12 May, op. cit., p. 78.

13 Herder, Werke, ed. Suphan, iii, 158–161.

14 It is treated in Martin Schütze, “The Fundamental Ideas of Herder's Thought,” M.P., xviii (1920–21), 65–78, 289–302; xix (1921–22), 113–130, 361–382; xxi (1923–24), 29–48, 113–132.

15 Wolfgang Nufer, Herders Ideen zur Verbindung von Poesie, Musik, und Tanz, “Germanische Studien,” lxxiv (Berlin, 1929), 6, 12, et passim.

16 Albert Wellek, “Das Doppelempfinden im 18. Jahrhundert,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, xiv (1936), 75–102. (Bibliography in notes.)

17 Loc. cit., p. 79.

18 Ibid., p. 86.

19 An Goethe, 24. Dez. 1800.

20 An Goethe, 29. Dez. 1797.

21 Julius Petersen, ed., Schillers Gespräche (Leipzig, 1911), p. 340.

22 Ibid., p. 306 (Karoline von Wolzogen).

23 Ibid., p. 366 (Schlömilch).

24 J. F. Bahrdt (librettist) and C. L. von Oertzen, Die Fürsten von Messina (Neustrelitz, 1840); Johann Heinrich Bonewitz, Die Braut von Messina, tragische Oper nach Schillers gleichnamiger Tragödie von Hermann Müller (Philadelphia, 1874); Hostinsky (librettist) and Zdenek Fibich, Die Braut von Messina, Oper nach Schillers gleichnamigem Trauerspiele (Prag, 1884); N. Vaccaj, La Sposa di Messina (1839). There is also a setting of the chorus, “Durch die Strassen der Städte,” by Georg Schumann.

25 Nufer, op. cit., p. 62, et passim.

26 Wilhelm von Humboldt, Über Göthes Hermann und Dorothea, “Deutsche Literatur in Entwicklungsreihen, Reihe Klassik,” xi, 255.

27 A. Bergmann, “Zwei unbekannte Berichte über die Uraufführung der Braut von Messina,” Dichtung und Volkstum, xxxv (1934), 506.

28 Karl Berger, Schüler, sein Leben und seine Werke (München, 1909), ii, 638 ff.

29 Herder, Werke, ed. Suphan, xxiii, 336; quoted in Burdach, loc. cit., cxliii, 103, reprinted Vorspiel, ii, 185 f.

30 Hans Baer, Beobachtungen über das Verhältnis von Herders Kalligone zu Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft (Heidelberg, 1907), 47–52.

31 Ibid., pp. 45 ff.

32 Novalis, Werke, ed. Bölsche (Leipzig, n.d.), Part iii, p. 57.