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Association and Disassociation in Storm's Novellen: A Study on the Meaning of the Frame
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
It has not escaped the notice of students of Storm's novelistic art that many of his Novellen employ the device known as the “frame,” nor have explanations been lacking as to its purpose. Most attention has not unnaturally been paid to the frames of the stories laid in the comparatively distant past—the so-called “Chroniknovellen” and the Schimmelreiler. The first systematic investigation of the use of the frame by Storm and his contemporaries is the study by Hans Bracher, Rahmen-erzahlung und Verwandtes bei G. Keller, C. F. Meyer und Th. Storm (Leipzig, 1909). This monograph examines the problem chiefly from the standpoint of the kind of frame encountered in these writers and the technical uses to which it is put. The question of the inner necessity of the frame is left largely unanswered, a fact of which Bracher himself is well aware. Georg Baesecke in a review of the book by H. Eichentopf, Th. St.s Erzdhlungskunst—in Zeitschrift f. deut. Philologie, XLI (1909), 520–531—has advanced the interesting theory that the frame is for Storm a means of freeing his hand and his conscience; the ego thereby shoves the responsibility for the truth of the epic material upon a third person. Baesecke arrives at this point of view by proceeding on the assumption that Storm's novelistic art grew out of his lyrical art, as the poet himself indeed asserted, though it has never been satisfactorily explained just what he meant by this dictum. Baesecke implies that in the lyrical production the ego is free to speak in its own right out of actual experience. That part of Thérèse Rockenbach's study which has been available to me, Th. St.s Chroniknovellen (Diss., Braunschweig, 1916), hardly throws new light on the “why” of the Stormian frame, though the author calls attention to interesting parallels between Storm's technique and that of others, especially Brentano, Stifter, and Raabe. Walter Brecht—“Storm und die Geschichte,” Deut. Vierteljahrss., iii (1925), 444–462—remarks that the difference between Storm's frames and those of other writers lies not so much in the technique itself as in the “Flut von Stim-mung, die in dem meist unausgesprochenen Nebeneinander in Rahmen und Erzählung steigt.” Storm's central concern, Brecht feels, is the “relation between Then and Now.” The gap between the past and the present is nothing less than the gap between life and death, which is itself a “mysterious connection.” In the frame, which is the instrument by means of which Storm “perspectively elongates” the present into the past, this relationship becomes particularly evident. Franz Stuckert, in his excellent article, “Th. St.s novellistische Form”—Germ.-Roman. Monatss., 27. Jhg. (1939), 24–39—seeks the origins of Storm's narrative art in the oral tradition of storytelling and finds that the frame fulfills for the poet an inner need by creating a situation analogous to that of audience and story-teller.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951
References
Note 1 in page 383 Bertha von Buchan (not Buchau) has long been regarded as the prototype of Elisabeth in Immensee. The theory that the Novelle is basically confessional in nature is strengthened by the recent publication of the Storm-Bertha correspondence by E. O. Wooley, Studies in Th. St., Indiana Univ. Publ. (1943). The similarity in tone and situation leaves little doubt that this early love was the “source” of the story. The incident recorded by Paul Schutze, Th. St. Sein Leben und seine Dichtung, 4th ed. (1925), pp. 123–124, concerning the origin of “Meine Mutter hat's gewollt” may well have been an additional factor in bringing the work to “jell”—it can hardly have been the seed from which it sprang.
Note 2 in page 383 It is pertinent to recall here Tycho Mommsen's rather brutal criticism of the first version of Immensee: “Lebende Bilder, tote Kunst” were the words he wrote over the whole. The original scene in the wine-cellar he thought “alltâglich, ohne Reiz”; Rhein-
hard's marriage (later deleted) : “Da haben wir des Pudels Kern, eitel Prosa.” (Quoted by Köster, Th. St.s sämtliche Werke in acht Bänden [Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1924], viii, 199–200. I shall refer to this edition in the sequel by volume and page number only.) Storm took Mommsen's words very much to heart as is proven by the changes he made, but it does not take much insight to imagine that they hurt and were still hurting when he wrote Ein griines Blatt.
Note 3 in page 384 Baesecke (op. cit., pp. 523–524) seems to have been the first to point this out. His explanation that it is due to Storm's inability at this stage to handle with ease material for which he cannot personally vouch has much to recommend it.
Note 4 in page 385 Cf. letter to Keller, 27 Feb. 1878 (“Der Briefwechsel zw. Th. St. u. Gottfr. Keller” hrsg. u. erl. v. A. Kôster, Deut. Rundschau, cxvii [1903], 46. In this paper these letters will be referred to by date only.) It is interesting to note that Storm here mentions Im Sonnen-schein as being one of his few works based on actual facts, which even in 1878 was somewhat exaggerated and furthermore not in consonance with other statements by Storm himself.
Note 5 in page 386 The Ego and the Id, transi. Joan Riviere (London, 1928), p. 21.
Note 6 in page 386 How important the auditory image as an aid to embodiment could be for Storm may be seen from the frames of Renate (conversation with “Mutter Pottsacksch,” v, 70 f.) and Der Herr Etatsrat (cf. infra, p. 398).
Note 7 in page 387 Apparently first remarked by Fr. Böhme, Th. St.s sämtliche Werke (Braunschw., 1913), ix, 155–156.
Note 8 in page 387 Storms Werke (Bibliogr. Institut, 1935), ix, 214.
Note 9 in page 388 How true the picture of the wife in Spate Rosen is of Storm's Constanze may be seen by comparing the portrait of the latter in Unter dem Tannenbaum (ii, 231) with that of her fictional counterpart here.
Note 10 in page 389 That the frame has another, more purely artistic, function has been beautifully shown by Joh. Klein, “Th. St.s Entwicklung als Novellist,” Germ.-Roman. Monalss., 25. Jhg. (1937), 18–19.
Note 11 in page 391 To what a pronounced degree Storm considered this particular story a “rescue” becomes clear in a letter to H. Brinkmann (Th. St. Briefe an seine Freunde H. Brinkmann uni W. Petersen, hrsg. v. G. Storm [Braunschw., 1917], p. 98) : “Sie [Lenore] wirft sich einem Scheinbild in die Arme und wird sich dann bewuszt, dasz sie dadurch das ihr eingeborene Urbild der Schönheit so befleckt hat, dasz nur das dunkle Wasser des Styx noch Hilfe bringen kann. Taucht sie aus dieser schwarzen Flut nichl schöner und reiner in der Seele des Lesers auf, so habe ich freilich mein Spiel verloren”.“”“”“”“”“”
Note 12 in page 392 What a wonderful figurative realization of this strongest of all desires of the Stormian character has the poet found in this Novelle! Harre, about to leave his Agnes forever, feels a wild urge to stop the mechanism of the tower clock: “Nichts horte ich als das Rasseln der groszen Turmuhr, die hier in der Einsamkeit ihr Wesen trieb. Ich weisz noch gar wohl, mir grauete vor diesem toten Dinge, und ich hätte, als ich daran vorbei kam, in die eisernen Räder greifen mögen, nur um es still zu machen” (iii, 100).
Note 13 in page 393 Cf. Franz Stuckert, “Idyllik und Tragik in der Dichtung Th. St.s,” Deut. Viertel-jahrss., xv (1937), 520.
Note 14 in page 394 Th. St. Ein Bild seines Lebens (Berlin, 1913), ii, 211–215.
Note 15 in page 395 G. Storm, op. cit., p. 182.
Note 16 in page 395 Briefe an s. Freunde, p. 193. Cf. also letter to Heyse—Der Briefw. zw. P. Heyse u. Th. St., hrsg. v. G. J. Plotke, 2 vols. (Miinchen, 1917), ii, 59 (these letters cited hereafter by date only)—where he calls this Novelle “meine neues Machwerk,” adding “dieses Wort ist ganz am Platze.” Even allowing for Storm's not infrequent discouragement with his work, there is a striking contrast here with his complete satisfaction with H. u. H. K. which immediately precedes Schweigen chronologically and which does have a solid source in reality. The state of the MS. also points to Storm's struggle with this material (cf. vin, 274).
Note 17 in page 397 Like Im Nachbarhause, the frame of Etatsrat originally contained a reference to literary categories, i.e., the artistic distance was even more pronounced (cf. viii, 271–272).
Note 18 in page 399 Cf. Rockenbach, op. cit., for details.
Note 19 in page 403 The writer has attempted to indicate some of the implications of this desire for disassociation in Der Schimmelreiter in his dissertation, The Use and Significance of the Supernatural in the Novellen of Th. St. (typescript, Princeton Univ., 1947).
Note 20 in page 403 Cf. “Die Entstehung des ‘Doktor Faustus’,” Die neue Rundschau, 13. Heft, Winter 1949, 34–35.