Berlin. Enlightenment, eroticism and humor: Thanks to a new edition of Wieland’s works, Wieland’s progressive novels and poetry can be read again.
It is no exaggeration to call him a “true” German classic. There is much to be said for this. We are talking about Christoph Martin Wieland. This “honest Swabian”, as he called himself, is the author of “Agathon”, that is, the first, “classic” Bildungsromans German language, without which a whole tradition of novels would be unthinkable, from Goethe’s great “Wilhelm Meister” to Stifter’s “Nachsommer” and Keller’s “The Green Heinrich” to Thomas Mann’s “Zauberberg”, Grass’s “Tin Drum” or, um. To cite a more recent example, it is enough to mention Ingo Schulze’s “Peter Holtz” – although the last three could justifiably be described as anti-bildungsromans because of their irony. In any case, the inspiration here was – more or less directly – the early novelist Wieland, who was himself a talented humorist and one of the most modern and progressive minds of his time.
As one of the first German writers and a prominent representative of the Enlightenment, he was also committed to the aesthetic ideals of antiquity, which were decisive for the forms and contents of the era, which were still in their infancy at the time. Weimar Classic. It was he who first gave the much younger Goethe access to antiquity. Of course, the two views on it would diverge, which led the still agitator and drinker to put on paper a farce called “Gods, Heroes and Wieland”, in which he violently mocked the man who was essentially deeply admired.
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Wieland’s musical piece “Alceste” – cheerful and touching – and the fact that he boasted that he had virtually surpassed Euripides’ “Alcestis” provided the model. Goethe, who valued nature in the broadest sense above all else, understandably found the work bloodless and responded with a natural and vigorous coarseness, close to nature. Seniority term was more archaic – but, as is well known, was gradually to become more domesticated, indeed, the Alceste appears to us today as the forerunner of his Iphigenia; Wieland, on the other hand, who in the somewhat woodcut-like attack is placed in a nightcap to represent the fool’s cap, had the greatness not only to forgive Goethe, but to praise the mockery as “a masterpiece of satire and sophisticated humor.”
Along with Goethe, Schiller and Herder, he was the fourth Weimar classicist and the oldest of the group. Born in 1733 in Oberholzheim (and died in Weimar in 1813), he already lived in the small town of Ilm before the others moved there. Culture was very important in the province of Thuringia, thanks to the duchess (and composer) Ana Amaliawhose aim was to maintain a “court of the muses”. Here too Wieland, who was entrusted with the education of his sons, notably the future prince and friend of Goethe, Carl August, played a pioneering role – and for decades afterwards remained a friend of Goethe.
By nature he was an Enlightenment thinker, a free spirit and a libertine; indeed, he is very similar to a Diderot or a Voltaire; in France, from where the radical Enlightenment spread to Germany – the subversive “Encyclopedia” was received in the same way as the materialist writings of La Mettrie or Helvétius – libertinism was almost on a par with pornography – and from a historical perspective it had a revolutionary effect. Wieland’s works are not pornographic, but some of them are extremely erotic. In the eyes of many contemporaries they were considered indecently offensive. His aim is such a prudish attitude resulting from religious moral concepts – key word: pietism “Comics” from 1765, which are revealing, obscene and, not least, masterful verses that aim to remove taboos on sexuality, including female and even same-sex sexuality. The models are Ovid and Lucian, and Wieland naturally evokes in them the ancient world of the gods, for whom morality was yet another alien concept.
Had it been shorter, his humorous and fairy-tale poem “Idris” could have been part of the “Comic Stories” and fits the concept perfectly; it concerns the fantastic adventures of the knight of the same name, who must redeem his petrified lover Zenide through sexual intercourse, and of his opponent Itifall, a sort of sex maniac.
Yes, what goes too far, goes too far. At least that was what the sensitive, German-loving poets of the Göttingen Hainbund thought, including the Homeric translator Johann Heinrich Voss, who did not hesitate to organize a book burning on the birthday of Klopstock, whom they revered in a cult manner, and – due to the lack of a copy of the “Comic Books”, which, why?, had long since been out of print – a copy of “Idris” was consigned to the flames. The conservative bourgeoisie did not like frivolity; perhaps they were also disturbed by the skeptical and enlightened impulse, and that was what they did not like at all. Ironization and deconstruction of the male hero – as Wieland also did in his novel “Don Sylvio von Rosalva”, which he adapted from “Don Quixote”. The final straw was his progressive image of women, because his fairies and princesses know what they want, act self-determinedly and thus neutralize common, heteronormative models. What a scandal! And it is no wonder that Wieland tended to fall into oblivion throughout the strange, fragile and even tense 19th century.
But it is definitely worth reading. And thanks to the study edition in individual volumes currently produced by Wallstein Verlag, this is possible again. “Idris” has just been published, the “Comic Stories”, “Don Sylvio” and “Aristipp” are already available and will follow soon. “The Story of Agathon” the novel itself without which our idea of this genre would perhaps be completely different.
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Christoph Martin Wieland: Idris. A Heroic-Comic Poem, Wallstein, Göttingen 2024, 229 pages, 34 euros; Comics, Wallstein, Göttingen 2023, 220 pages, 28 euros; Don Sylvio de Rosalva, Wallstein, Göttingen 2023, 472 pages, 42 euros; Aristipp and Some of His Contemporaries, Wallstein, Göttingen 2022, 984 pages, 48 euros.