I really like Theodor Storm as a poet because he seems to me to be incredibly conventional. There is almost nothing special about either the form or the content of Storm’s poetry, but these little pieces are (forgive the translations if they don’t convey this) perfectly crafted all the same. There is no danger of ambition getting in the way of the message. While it is true that Storm wrote longer poems that I haven’t translated here, even those are all limited in formal and thematic scope. It seems he understood his talents and never thought it was worth the danger of trying to move beyond them, something he did in the formal experimentation of his novellas.
Theodor Storm, author of poems and novellas, was born and lived most of his life on the shores of the North Sea. His most famous poem “The Town”/Die Stadt (not translated here), takes his hometown of Husum as its setting.
Storm was born in 1817 in Husum, a small town in the duchy of Schleswig, at that time ruled by the Danish crown, even though it contained a sizeable German population. He studied law further south, wrote poems and novellas (I’ve written on Aquis Submersus here, and Immensee here), and returned to Husum after it had come under Prussian rule following a brief war with Denmark. There is a political slant to his work at times, but this doesn’t come across in the selection I’ve translated. I don’t feel the patriotism translates well without notes and I’m not sure it’d be enjoyable with them either.
Storm died at the age of 70 from cancer, shortly after
completing “The Rider on the White Horse”, perhaps his greatest
novella.
The Poems
I’ve translated several of Storm’s poems. His topics within them range from life and love to death and decay. My only regret with them is that I haven’t yet translated his more nature-based poems. I find them particularly beautiful. But that means I’m harder on myself – I want to do them justice. Since I myself grew up by a grey and northern coastline, I’m especially fond of Storm’s poetry dealing with his homeland.
But anyway, here are the poems. Following them will be a few
comments.
Beginning of the End
It's just a point, not even pain - It's just a feeling you perceive - And yet it hangs around your thoughts, And yet it makes it hard to breathe.
And when you try to tell your friends, You find you cannot find the words. You tell yourself: "this is no end." And yet there's no peace from its birth.
And now the world becomes so strange, And quietly your hopes depart, Until you see at last - at last! - That death's dark arrow's found your heart.
Insomnia
I woke from dreams in worried fright - Why is the lark's song out in the night?
The day's gone by, the morning's still far, Down onto my pillow there shines a star.
Yet on and on there floats the lark's song - O voice of day, what has gone wrong?
Early Morning
Above the roof the sun's gold shines, And cocks begin to crow the time; The one crows here, the other there, Their call rings out from everywhere. Now in the distance dies the cry - There's nothing more to fill the sky. Oh brave old cocks, sing on your song! They are still sleeping, sleeping on.
A Whisper
It is a whisper in the night, And yet it set my peace to flight. I feel it's there, it wants to say Some thing but cannot find the way.
Is it love's words, their secrets thrown Into the wind, blown far from home? Or is it pain from future days That hopes to help me change my ways?
Husum, Storm’s birthplace and home for much of his life. It’s a lovely little town and the Storm Museum there is worth visiting if you’re ever in the area. Photo by Bernd Untiedt (CC BY-SA 3.0)
"One body and one soul..."
One body and one soul, as once we were, - Seen thus, how great your death to me appears. As you, alone, within the grave decay, So too feel I, myself, decay up here.
"A man held once..."
A man held once by loving arms, Need never ask in life for alms. If he must die far off, alone, Still yet he'll feel those blessed hours, When her mouth loved with all its powers, And now in death she'll stay his own.
Consolation Whatever happens, come what may! If you still live I'll love this day.
The feeling goes, the world to roam - Wherever you are, that's my home.
I see your lovely face before me, And know the future cannot hurt me.
Closing Remarks
If I had to write about these in an essay, I’d find more to say than I will say now. But essays are always unnatural; they just get in the way of enjoying the simplicity of the poetry. Storm’s poetry is often about love, about the changes in love brought by death and separation. In this he seems quite similar to another major German poet of the same period, Eduard Mörike. But Storm’s poetry, at least here, also has a much greater sense of apprehension and anxiety about it. Death is always just around the corner, and however beautiful the natural world is there’s also a sense that Storm is not always certain that he can correctly interpret the world’s symbols. The gap between perception and his understanding seems to torment him, as in “Insomnia” and “A Whisper” – both end in questions.
I hope you enjoyed my translations. If you have any comments, why not leave a comment? If you want more German poetry, I have a piece on Hugo von Hofmannsthal here.
I confess I’ve never really gotten the hype with Thomas
Mann. Or rather, the moment I start reading him I’m usually left either
disappointed or confused. I blame his reputation. German students like me flock
to read him but soon find they spend more time in the dictionary than the
stories themselves. Death in Venice is a particular pain to understand
the language of, and that’s not even half the battle of making sense of that
tale. Nonetheless, once I read it in English (the poor Cambridge academics who
supervise me are doubtless shaking their heads in disappointment) I found it
rather enjoyable, and intellectually challenging too. Nevertheless, due to the
arcane rules of Cambridge examinations I can’t talk about Death in Venice
next year, though Mann himself remains on the syllabus. Looking for
alternatives, I turned to “Gladius Dei”, hoping it would have something
interesting to say.
“Gladius Dei” – I was attracted by the title, meaning “the
sword of God” – is not nearly as action-packed as its title suggests. And nor
is it as focused on the past as the Latin hints at either. Instead, it shows
the clash between modern art and the sensibility that drove it with the older
ideas that once justified artistic creation but which, in 1902 (the time of the
novella’s composition), had very much fallen out of fashion. It is the tale of one
man, Hieronymus, and his struggle against modernism as a whole.
Translations are from David Luke’s Death in Venice and
Other Stories.
The Odeon Square in Munich, where Hieronymus breaks down at the climax of “Gladius Dei”. Photo by Luidger CC BY-SA 3.0
Introduction: Munich, the Fallen City
“Munich was resplendent.” “Gladius Dei” begins with a description
of Munich, and Munich in some way is the main character of the novella. The
German Jugendstil, their Art Nouveau, was at the height of its popularity in
the city at the time the novella was written. From the very first paragraph,
listing “festive squares” and “colonnades” and “fountains” we are immersed into
this world of art. We meet the people, particularly women, who live in the city
– as types, rather than as people. They are all relaxed and indolent. There is
no rush about them.
Then we are taken into “the elaborate beauty-emporium of
Herr M. Blüthenzweig”, where artistic reproductions and books are all on
display, ranging in topic from the very modern to the classical. And here there
is the first sense that art and its creation are not done in isolation, but influenced
by consumers and their tastes – “among all this the portraits of artists,
musicians, philosophers, actors and writers are displayed to gratify the
inquisitive public’s taste for personal details.”
Next, we meet the key reproduction, which forms the focal
point of the novella – but we don’t learn what it is in the novella’s first
part. Instead, we are introduced to it through (literal) framing – “there is a large
picture which particularly attracts the crowd: an excellent sepia photograph in
a massive old-gold frame”. The frame is significant – its age contrasts with
the contents, which are “sensational” and highly modern, promoted by “quaintly printed
placards” and “this year’s great international exhibition”. Ironically, like
the citizens of the novella, we are shown modern art by means of its popular reputation
rather than its particular contents.
The narrative then moves back onto the street from its focus,
completing the framing of the central picture. The final paragraph discusses
the popularity of the art while returning to the novella’s opening words. “That
it should continue so to thrive is a matter of general and reverent concern; on
all sides diligent work and propaganda are devoted to its service; everywhere
there is a pious cult of line, of ornament, of form, of the sense, of beauty…
Munich is resplendent.” Though “Gladius Dei” ends its first part with the same
words that begun it, here the tone is changed. From the purely celebratory beginning,
now there is something seedy about the art – hinted at by words like “propaganda”
and “cult”. It is this tension and seediness that the centre of Mann’s tale hinges
upon.
Hieronymus and the Madonna
With the second section of “Gladius Dei” we are introduced
to Hieronymus, whose name, reminding me of the artist Bosch, immediately
conjures up images of the past. Against the brightness of resplendent Munich we
are told that “when one looked at him, a shadow seemed to pass across the sun
or a memory of dark hours across the soul”. He is inscrutable, but we are told
he resembles a portrait in Florence of a monk who also raged against the world.
In this way, Mann connects the present anger of Hieronymus with a historical precedent,
that of the priest, Girolamo Savonarola. The two of them also share the same
name.
Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican priest who shares a passionate hatred of modernity with Hieronymus, alongside some physical features too.
Hieronymus first goes to a church on the Ludwigstrasse to
pray, and then he comes across the art house of Blüthenzweig. Going inside, he
sees the reproduction first mentioned in part 1 of “Gladius Dei”:
“It was a Madonna, painted in a wholly modern and entirely unconventional manner. The sacred figure was ravishingly feminine, naked and beautiful. Her great sultry eyes were rimmed with shadow, and her lips were half parted in a strange and delicate smile. Her slender figures were grouped rather nervously and convulsively round the waist of the Child, a nude boy of aristocratic, almost archaic slimness, who was playing with her breast and simultaneously casting a knowing sidelong glance at the spectator.”
This is sacrilege. A holy image turned lustful – “ravishing”,
“sultry”, and the “knowing sidelong glance” all suggest that the glorification
inherent in such a choice of subject has taken a back seat. Hieronymus overhears
two young men discussing the painting, neither of whom respects its religious
subject matter. “She does make one a bit doubtful about the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception” one says. But they inform the reader that the painting
has been bought by the Pinakothek Gallery and that its artist is being feted
around the city. Their language is almost comically cultural, as if – to use
the modern phrase – they are a bunch of posers. I would be surprised if this was
not exactly what Mann has in mind. Hieronymus, meanwhile, finishes looking at
the painting, and leaves, ending part 2.
Part 3 is only a page long, but it describes Hieronymus’
struggles to rid himself of the image of the sexualised Madonna. At last,
however, “on the third night” he receives what he perceives to be a command
from God, and decides that he must go and protest the display of such a work of
art. And now the story approaches its climax.
Action and Inaction – the Bloodless Climax of Gladius Dei
Part 4 begins as Hieronymus heads onto the street, filled
with righteous rage. “It is God’s will”, he thinks to himself, echoing the cries
of “Deus Vult” that launched the first crusades. Outside the weather has begun
to worsen, and a storm appears to be approaching. He reaches Blüthenzweig’s shop
and goes inside, seeing evidence all around him for the spiritual decay of
humankind. For example, there is a “gentleman in a yellow suit with a black
goatee” who has a “bleating laugh” – both the laugh and the goatee suggest
something animalistic about him. Coming across Blüthenzweig as he’s finalizing
a transaction Hieronymus hears him call it “most attractive and seductive”.
Blüthenzweig is a capitalist, an art dealer with little
appreciation for art itself. That is Hieronymus’ interpretation anyway, as he claims
the dealer despises him “because I am not able to buy anything from you.”
Meanwhile, Hieronymus is entirely concerned with the non-monetary value that
art has. Is it good for the spirit, or not? In the case of the Madonna, he sees
it as actively pernicious – “vice itself.” Blüthenzweig rejects this immediately
– “The picture is a work of art… and as such it must be judged by the
appropriate standards”. The painting has been bought by the gallery and is
universally acclaimed. Both Blüthenzweig and Hieronymus have their own idea of
what the “appropriate standards” are, but Blüthenzweig’s idea is marked by a
focus on the external – acclaim – while Hieronymus’ is internal – “the
spiritual enrichment of mankind”.
Hieronymus does not let Blüthenzweig convince him. He cries
of hell, of the torments of purgatory. Beauty is a lie used by the representatives
of Jugendstil to avoid considering the health of the soul. Instead, art ought
to be “the sacred torch that must shed its merciful light into all life’s
terrible depths, into every shameful and sorrowful abyss”. It must be about
compassion, not beauty. Hieronymus demands that Blüthenzweig burns the reproduction,
which naturally he does not have any interest in doing. He calls in Krauthuber,
one of his workers, to throw Hieronymus out of the shop. Krauthuber is “a son
of the people, malt-nourished, herculean and awe-inspiring” and with “heroic
arms.” He represents, it seems to me, a sidestepping of the Christian view of
art that Hieronymus represents towards the Classical, where art, especially if
one takes Nietzsche’s view, was all about advancing the spirit and glorifying
it.
Just not in the Christian sense of the spirit or
glorification. Alone on the street, Hieronymus falls into madness, surrounded
by the markers of a depraved age – “carnival costumes”, “naked statues”, and “the
busts of women”. He sees them all piled into a pyramid and set to flames. It is
here, as the novella ends, that he quotes Savonarola, who had had a similar
vision of God’s vengeance, “Gladius Dei super terram… Cito et velociter” – “behold
there is the sword of God above the Earth, fast and swift”. He has achieved
nothing for his madness, but perhaps Hieronymus succeeded in saving his soul.
Who can say?
Theories of Art and the Modernism of “Gladius Dei”
By the time that Mann is writing “Gladius Dei” Hieronymus’
view of art was well out of date. Even in the 19th century, art had
already become popular, its form and content determined by market forces –
think of Dickens in England during that time, or Dumas in France. That’s not to
say that lofty goals had departed from artistic endeavours, but rather that
they were often secondary to the need to feed oneself and one’s family,
especially as artistic production became democratised and a new generation of
writers and artists who were not aristocratic in background came to prominence.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to see where Mann sits in
all this. Though in “Gladius Dei” he shows the vapid banality of Blüthenzweig
and his customers, Hieronymus is a ridiculous figure too. The contrast between
the violence of the novella’s title and the ultimate lack of action and change seems
to mock Hieronymus’ hopes to change society’s relation to art for the better.
Likely, Mann sits somewhere in the middle – he respects Hieronymus’ love for
the spiritual mission for art, while acknowledging the historical forces that
make this view secondary, and indeed challenging to hold. The old values, in a
world where “God is dead”, simply aren’t reliable anymore.
It’s also worth considering how the form of “Gladius Dei” reflects modernism in its composition. For one, there’s Mann’s ambivalence towards all of his characters, so that it’s not clear who is worth supporting, if anybody. Then there is also the satirical use of religion (just like the Madonna itself) and its language when Hieronymus thinks God is commanding him to defeat Blüthenzweig and the reproduction. It’s clear that Mann doesn’t think Hieronymus is really hearing God or want the reader to think so either. The inconclusiveness of the novella’s conclusion is also, in its own way, modernistic. We are given no guidance – it’s not even clear if we should pity Hieronymus. All, I think, that is clear is that the Jugendstil movement and the Christian artistic sensibility of Hieronymus are both inadequate in Mann’s view. But what is good art – Mann’s ideas on that are impossible to work out.
Thomas Mann in 1905, three years after “Gladius Dei” was completed. I’m not sure how far I approve of the coldness of his writings. Intellectualism alone is not what I’m after as a reader.
Conclusion
Personally, I’m closer to Hieronymus than Mann is. Not in the sense that I think literature and art should be about fulfilling a Christian message, but rather that I do think there should be a strong message in them about the value of humanity. A literature must be affirmative, glorifying our lives and life itself in all their complexity, whether good or bad. This is the secret to Tolstoy’s greatness. Mann doesn’t care enough about people for that. In this, he reminds me a little bit of Isaac Babel, another writer who is much more intellectual than emotional. It can make stories that are thought provoking, but terribly cold…
I thought “Gladius Dei” was ok. I mean, it’ll be easy to write about it next year once I’m back at Cambridge. But the measure of a book’s value isn’t how easily I’ll be able to ram it into an essay. I’ll keep reading Mann, but I hope one day I’ll understand where he keeps his heart locked away. Irony just doesn’t cut it for me – our own world is too ironic, too dispassionate, already. The solution to an ironic and dead world isn’t acceptance, but a conscious search for meaning and value, like Kazantzakis managed in Report to Greco. But perhaps I’m asking too much.
If you’ve read “Gladius Dei” and have an opinion on it, why
not drop by the comments and let me know what you thought?
Immensee is perhaps the best known of Theodor Storm’s novellas, and like many of them it is a tale of thwarted love and missed opportunities. Unlike Storm’s Aquis Submersus, which I have written about here, and which is characterised by elements of tragedy and drama, Immensee is a much more symbolic work where the main focus is on “Stimmung”, or mood. What follows is a summary of the story of Immensee, followed by some ways of looking at the meaning of the tale. Translations from the German are mine.
An old American cover for Immensee. It shows one of the novella’s key symbols – the white lily.
The Plot of Immensee
Immensee tells the brief story of two children,
Reinhard and Elisabeth, who at first seem destined to marry. Through ten
vignettes, each no more than a few pages, we follow the two as they grow from
children into adults, and then become separated through Elisabeth’s marriage to
another man, Erich. The opening and final vignettes, both titled “The Old Man” are
set considerably later than the rest of scenes, and show Reinhard as an old
man, lonely and unfulfilled as he reminisces upon the disappointment of the
past and his own role in sealing his fate.
The first of the reminiscences is entitled “The children” and
shows the two children – Reinhard aged ten, and Elisabeth only five – playing
together in the height of summer. Their joy with each other is palpable – they
dance and sing, and the section ends with them returning home, “springing hand
in hand together”. The next section, “In the Forest” takes place seven years
later, as Reinhard is preparing to leave for further study in a different town.
The two children are tasked with locating strawberries and Reinhard claims he
knows a place, but when they arrive, exhausted, it is dark and there are none
left on the bushes. A brief division is seen between the children, as Elisabeth
says the place makes her afraid, while Reinhard talks of its beauty. In either
case, they leave empty handed, and Reinhard’s final day is a disappointment.
“There Stood the Child on the Road” sees Reinhard already at
university on Christmas Eve. Like a good student we find him drinking in a bar,
where a gypsy woman is playing music. Reinhard stands and makes a toast “to
your beautiful, sinful eyes!” and tries to give her money, but she rebuffs him
when he refuses to stay for her. He leaves the bar and goes outside onto the
street, and then home, where he finds a gift of cookies from Elisabeth has
arrived. In her letter she berates him for not having written or sent her any
fairy tales as he had promised. Overcome with guilt, Reinhard goes out and buys
a coral cross for her, and then begins writing letters home to her and his
mother.
“At home” sees Reinhard home and with Elisabeth, but he
finds her changed. There are pauses where earlier there would be conversation,
and she often turns her back to him. He also discovers that in the place of the
bird he had sent her another boy, Erich, has given her a luxurious cage with a canary
inside it. She doesn’t seem interested in what he has written either. But
before he departs, he seems to rekindle his passion for her, and reassure
himself of her faithfulness. He tells her he has a secret, “and when in two
years I am back here you shall learn what it is!” – undoubtedly a proposal. But
in “A Letter”, the shortest of the vignettes of Immensee, we learn that Elisabeth
has agreed to be married to Erich, after refusing for some time. Reinhard, perhaps
to build expectation, hadn’t written to her since they parted…
“Immensee” has Reinhard come to Immensee, the estate that Erich has inherited and which has given him the means to win over both Elisabeth and (more importantly) her mother. He has come at Erich’s invitation, not his wife’s, because Erich wishes to surprise Elisabeth by showing her her old friend. And for most of the scene we don’t even see her. When Reinhard finally does, she appears unfamiliar, as “the white and girlish form of a woman”. Both of them appear changed to one another, and Reinhard ends up starting to go for walks alone in the evenings, where on one occasion the heavens break open and he is soaked.
“My Mother Wanted It” has the family – Erich, Elisabeth, and
her mother – sitting around one evening with Reinhard also present. Together
Elisabeth and Reinhard sing a popular Romantic ballad, and then, emboldened,
Reinhard reads one of his poems – he is a writer – which is clearly about
Elisabeth’s marriage to Erich and her loss of Reinhard. She grows embarrassed
and leaves the room. Reinhard also goes outside, and approaches the lake that
lies in the centre of the Immensee Estate. There he sees a white lily, and he
tries to swim out to it. He gets very close, but is unable to make it to the
lily. He leaves, sodden and disappointed.
In “Elisabeth”, the final vignette, Reinhard tries to
reminisce upon the past together with Elisabeth, but she rejects him, even the
idea of going looking for strawberries – “it’s not the time for strawberries
now”. Having failed, Reinhard heads back to the house. On the way he meets the
gypsy, now an old woman, who asks for alms. He gives her his money and then
asks her what else she wants, but she says there’s nothing else. At the house
Reinhard finds he cannot write anymore and decides to leave as soon as
possible. The next morning he aims to leave without notice, but she finds him
in time to confirm her suspicions that he will never come again. And then
Reinhard is gone.
His memories exhausted, the aged Reinhard sees before him
the water lily again and decides to get to work. His creativity is gone, but
there remains within him a capacity for academic study. This is to be his fate.
So that’s the plot of Immensee. Now for a few bits
and pieces towards thinking about it.
The Novella’s Structure: Poetry and Vignettes
I mentioned above that Immensee is divided into ten
vignettes, or scenes, ranging from Elisabeth and Reinhard’s youths up to
Reinhard’s old age. What is the significance of the structure? Each of the
scenes is able to function as an independent unit, similar to separate poems in
a cycle. Each scene brings with it a different mood, with its own symbols and
ideas. They function as separate memories, while nonetheless forming part of a
coherent whole – Reinhard’s understanding of his failed relationship with
Elisabeth. The containment of these scenes within Reinhard’s memory serves to
contain his central despair over his failure and bring order to the
meaninglessness and chaos of his life. By organising his memories Reinhard can
come to understand them and move on. The novella thus moves from the first
scene’s initial pain at being reminded of Elisabeth, to Reinhard moving on through
academic work at the end.
By using vignettes and focusing on the mood, the structure
of Immensee has significance outside of Reinhard’s perspective too. Not
only does the structure bring order to Reinhard’s life, it also makes it
beautiful. In this way Storm takes what is ultimately a tragic story and imbues
it with a redemptive quality – he makes it into art. In this way, he predicts
Nietzsche’s command that our suffering must be made into art so that it can
have value.
Immensee also makes use of poetry. Storm was a
wonderful poet as well as a writer and a few of the poems in Immensee
are also found in my collection of his poetry. The use of poetry serves to
enhance the feeling that the vignettes are poetic themselves. The song of the
gypsy is important because it stresses the fragility of existence, warning Reinhard
of the danger of his hopes for Elisabeth and his ultimate fate.
Today and just today, Am I so beautiful. Tomorrow, oh tomorrow, All this will pass away. And only in this hour, Can I call you my own. For death, alas my death Will find me all alone.
The poetry that Reinhard reads to Elisabeth is also
significant. Reinhard thinks, perhaps, that the beauty of his artistic talent
will be enough to win the old Elisabeth back to him. But he is sorely mistaken.
In this way we see that poetry and the artistic structure of Immensee
more broadly is designed to redeem the world but not grant us riches in it.
The Symbols and Details of Immensee
Immensee is full of symbols and symbolic content and
here I’ll only focus on the things that strike me as particularly significant.
After all, our essays are only so long.
Colours, Light and Dark. According to my notes from the
first time I read Immensee the colours of the novella get progressively
darker as it progresses. Reading it through this time, I don’t think it’s an
exact science. Nonetheless, there is a clear movement from light to dark. When
the children are first playing it is summer and bright outside. But by the time
of their first problems, in the forest, it is dark. Immensee itself, for
Reinhard at least, is marked by its darkness. The weather there is always bad
and stormy, reflecting his own increasingly sad state of mind.
From an early American edition of Immensee, I find the picture accurately shows the kind of (perhaps excessive) Romanticism of the story.
Names. I’m not sure what the significance of any of the characters’ names in Immensee is, but there is one point I’d like to mention. In “A Letter” we learn that Reinhard’s second name is Werner after his landlady brings in the letter from Elisabeth’s mother. It is something of a jarring moment for the reader, as up till then Reinhard has only been called Reinhard – we come to know him by that name. It is significant because it reflects the jarring nature of the news the letter contains: the person Reinhard thought he knew, Elisabeth, has changed completely from his idea. The intimacy they had shared is lost, and Reinhard thus becomes (albeit temporarily in the text) Mr Werner. But it is enough.
Immensee itself is also a significant name. “Imme” is a poetic variant of the German word for bee, so the estate’s name is something like “bee-lake”. Bees are used throughout literature for their associations with productivity and hard, collective work. This is exactly what we see on Erich’s estate: a world of practical achievements in his factory and workers that stands in complete contrast to Reinhard’s unacknowledged, intellectual world. So in its own way, even the novella’s title is there to show what Reinhard lacks.
The Bird. Reinhard sends Elisabeth a linnet, a small bird. But the bird, we learn in “There Stood the Child on the Road”, has died. And when Reinhard goes home he sees a new bird, a canary, in a new golden cage. The cage represents the riches of Erich, having inherited the estate at Immensee, and perhaps the bird in the cage may be read as Elisabeth herself, her heart now caught by another. In any case, the incident with the birds shows clearly how Reinhard’s role in her life is being usurped by another.
The Coral Cross. The significance of the coral cross seems
to me rather to be its lack of significance to the plot. In a work full of
echoes, symbols and connections the cross is notable in that it does not
reappear, but rather is forgotten. The faith that the cross implies turns out
not to be present in Elisabeth – or at least, the faith is eventually overcome.
It is, in a sense, a red herring among symbols because of its lack of use. Instead,
it comes to symbolise Reinhard’s failure.
The White Lily. This is the main symbol of the whole of Immensee.
It appears both in “My Mother Wanted it” but also in the final vignette, as a
vision before Reinhard’s eyes. Reinhard swims into the centre of the lake to
try to capture the beauty of the lily, but he is defeated. And thus it comes to
represent all that is unreachable, unattainable, especially in terms of beauty.
But at the same time, its beauty is great, and thus when Reinhard thinks about
it towards the end of the novella it comes as a sort of consolation. It cannot
be reached, but it remains in his memory, just as Elisabeth herself does.
Ways of Approaching Immensee: Romanticism and Social
Constraints
There are lots of different ways of approaching writing
about Immensee and here are those that caught my eye while thinking
about the novella.
Parent-child conflict. How very banal. Nonetheless, there is
a social angle to the novella that’s well worth exploring. Elisabeth is put
under a lot of pressure by her mother to be with Erich, rather than with
Reinhard. The reason for this seems to be that Erich is far more monetarily
successful and has a greater social status, while Reinhard is simply a writer.
When Reinhard comes to visit Immensee, Erich shows him all of the industry
being built on the land, including a spirits factory. Reinhard, however, ends
the novella still renting rooms, rather than owning houses.
Reinhard’s failure to be with Elisabeth is the result of his
reluctance to tell her his feelings outright – instead he wants to wait too
years before surprising her with a proposal. But Reinhard’s failure is also the
failure of the Romantic sensibility more broadly. Immensee, in the
version we now read, was published in 1851, some time after the Romantics of
the German lands, such as Heine, had already given up on Romanticism or died. The
novella is far enough beyond Romanticism to treat its ideas with scepticism and
irony.
A relatively young Theodor Storm. Immensee was an early-career hit, but it’s not my favourite story of his. The Rider on the White Horse (Der Schimmelreiter) takes that prize. I also love his poems.
This attitude manifests itself in the way Reinhard is
treated. He makes up fairy tales for Elisabeth and writes poetry, and seems to
see great power in gestures and in art. But as a result, he waits to tell
Elisabeth of his feelings, including making the ridiculous decision not to send
any letters for two years, all of which means that Erich is able to propose
instead. When, at Immensee itself, he comes to sing with Elisabeth, he tries to
talk about his passion for the music, but nobody pays any attention to his
lyricism on the subject. Reinhard, the Romantic, is out of touch and unable to
communicate properly with the modern people surrounding him. His passionate
verses fail to seduce or please Elisabeth – instead they only upset her. Immensee
thus presents the collision of the Romantic sensibility with reality and its
subsequent failure to impress.
No doubt the art is beautiful, as Immensee itself is.
But it is also useless for Reinhard’s pursuit of his worldly aims. He needs
money and status if he’s to get anywhere when he has a rival like Erich.
Conclusion
Storm’s novella has remained popular for over one hundred and fifty years, and given what I’ve discussed above I hope it’s possible to see why that’s the case. Not only is the work short and structured in a way that makes it easy to read a few pages of at a time, it is also highly symbolic, making it richly rewarding to read it repeatedly. Its clearly symbolic quality makes it prime fodder for classroom syllabuses, because it’s hard to find something in the work that doesn’t mean something. I would know about that – I first had to read it back in school, though I’m not sure I actually did, as my copy was eerily devoid of annotations when I came to read it through last week.
The topic of the novella also helps it. Frustrated love is something that is easy to relate to, and as a result the distance between Storm’s time and our own seems far less than it actually was. For who hasn’t found, in the course of their lives, some small regret for a relationship that could have been, if only we’d just stopped and had the confidence to act in time? A gloomy memory, no doubt, but at least in Immensee old Storm turns the sentiment into art. In a way, our sufferings are thereby redeemed.
