Hesperus oder 45 Hundsposttage: Eine Lebensbeschreibung

Hesperus oder 45 Hundposttage #1-4

by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter

Jean Paul: Hesperus oder 45 Hundsposttage. "Eine Lebensbeschreibung"

Edition Holzinger. Taschenbuch

Berliner Ausgabe, 2013

Vollstandiger, durchgesehener Neusatz mit einer Biographie des Autors bearbeitet und eingerichtet von Michael Holzinger

Erstdruck: Berlin 1795. (3 Bde.)



Textgrundlage ist die Ausgabe: Jean Paul: Werke. Herausgegeben von Norbert Miller und Gustav Lohmann, Band 1-6, Munchen: Hanser, 1959-1963.

Herausgeber der Reihe: Michael Holzinger

Reihengestaltung: Viktor Harvion

Umschlaggestaltung unter Verwendung des Bildes: Jean Paul (Gemalde von Heinrich Pfenninger, 1798)

Gesetzt aus Minion Pro, 10 pt

Genres: Fiction

690 pages, Paperback

Published April 10, 2013

About the author

Humorous and sentimental novels of German writer Jean Paul Friedrich Richter under pen name Jean Paul include Titan (1800-1803) and Years of Indiscretion (1804-1805).

In the Fichtelgebirge mountains of Bavaria, his father worked as an organist. This fathre served in 1765 as a pastor at Joditz near Hof and in 1767 at Schwarzenbach but died on 25 April 1779, leaving the family in great poverty. After attending the gymnasium at Hof, Jean Paul went in 1781 to the University of Leipzig. His original intention was to enter his father's profession, but theology did not interest him, and he soon devoted himself wholly to the study of literature. Unable to maintain himself at Leipzig, he returned in 1784 to Hof, where he lived with his mother. From 1787 to 1789 he served as a tutor at Töpen, a village near Hof; and from 1790 to 1794 he taught the children of several families in a school he had founded in nearby Schwarzenbach.
Jean Paul began his career as a man of letters with Grönländische Prozesse ("Greenland Lawsuits", published anonymously in Berlin) and Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren ("Selections from the Devil's Papers", signed J. P. F. Hasus), the former of which was issued in 1783-84, the latter in 1789. These works were not received with much favour, and in later life Richter himself had little sympathy for their satirical tone. A spiritual crisis he suffered on 15 November 1790, in which he had a vision of his own death, altered his outlook profoundly. His next book, Die unsichtbare Loge ("The Invisible Lodge"), a romance published in 1793 under the pen-name Jean Paul (in honour of Jean Jacques Rousseau), had all the qualities that were soon to make him famous, and its power was immediately recognized by some of the best critics of the day.
Encouraged by the reception of Die unsichtbare Loge, Richter composed a number of books in rapid succession: Hesperus (1795), Biographische Belustigungen unter der Gehirnschale einer Riesin (1796), Leben des Quintus Fixlein (1796), Der Jubelsenior (1797), and Das Kampaner Tal (1797). Also among these was the novel Blumen- Frucht- und Dornenstücke, oder Ehestand, Tod und Hochzeit des Armenadvokaten Siebenkäs in 1796-97. The book's slightly supernatural theme, involving a Doppelgänger and pseudocide, stirred some controversy over its interpretation of the Resurrection, but these criticisms served only to draw awareness to the author. This series of writings assured Richter a place in German literature, and during the rest of his life every work he produced was welcomed by a wide circle of admirers.
After his mother's death in 1797, Richter went to Leipzig, and in the following year to Weimar, where he started work on his most ambitious novel, Titan, published between 1801-02. Richter became friends with such Weimar notables as Herder, by whom he was warmly appreciated, but despite their close proximity, Richter never become close to Goethe and Schiller, both of whom found his literary methods repugnant; but in Weimar, as elsewhere, his remarkable conversational powers and his genial manners made him a favorite in general society. In 1801 he married Caroline Meyer, whom he had met in Berlin the year before. They lived first at Meiningen, then at Coburg; and finally, in 1804, they settled at Bayreuth.
Here Richter spent a quiet, simple and happy life, constantly occupied with his work as a writer. In 1808 he was fortunately delivered from anxiety about outward necessities by Prince Primate Karl Theodor von Dalberg, who gave him a pension. Titan was followed by Flegeljahre (1804-5), two works which he himself regarded as his masterpieces. His later imaginative works were Dr Katzenbergers Badereise (1809), Des Feldpredigers Schmelzle Reise nach Flätz (1809), Leben Fibels (1812), and Der Komet, oder Nikolaus Marggraf (1820-22). In Vorschule der Aesthetik (1804) he expounded his ideas on art; he discussed the principles of education i

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Hesperus was one stubborn beast for me to get through, and quite obstinate for being reviewed. What you read here is the fifth(!) attempt to find something meaningful to say about the book and its author; trying to convince you to give it and him a chance.

Hesperus; Or, Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days / A Biography (that’s the full title), was first published in 1794, then again in 1797, and the final, third edition came out in 1819 and that’s the one I read. Jean Paul wouldn’t be Jean Paul if he hadn’t included a preface to each of these editions. He promised to keep it short though, because

Two long Prefaces follow on the heels of this third,–the first that of the second edition, and the next that of the first. Now, if I make this third again a long one,–and perhaps also, in fact, the many remaining ones of future editions,–I do not see how a reader of these latter can get through the lane of antechambers to the historical picture-gallery: he will die on his way to the book.

I picked this quote from the preface, because I think it’s symptomatic of the writing of Jean Paul. These two sentences, which happen to be the first two real sentences in the book, are not exactly short, aren’t they? – even though he says they would be. One is inclined to twirl one’s hand to show him to get on with his thing and to the point and to finally tell us something of importance. And there’s this rather odd simile in which he compares his novel with an “historical picture-gallery”. What’s that supposed to mean? Finally, dying while reading a book’s prefaces is a little of an exaggeration, don’t you think?

If you would agree to at least two of these three assessments, I believe Jean Paul isn’t for you. And, sorry, you probably picked the wrong review to read, because it happens that I do love this kind of writing. It’s exactly the kind of prose I was hooked on ever since I read his first novel; The Invisible Lodge. And in the Hesperus it goes on and on like this for hours and hours of pure reading pleasure.

It took me, not forty-five, but thirty-three days, to get through. It’s demanding, all right. And it’s true that some sentences were really hard to crack. Sometimes it felt like prying open a clam with a little plastic spoon. But once this was accomplished I found the meat tastes delicious, and I discovered a whole lot of nice pearls along the way too!

I don’t recall who said this, but someone called Jean Paul a “foreign-words-swank”, and meant it as a compliment. Someone else invented the moniker “aeronaut of imagination”. For me Jean Paul is just a damned good writer. I usually don’t care about the personal life of an author too much. It’s the book I’m reading that counts. I mean, I read about authors on Wikipedia, or elsewhere, and sometimes I read a biography when I feel the need to know more about the person. But that’s about it. Jean Paul is one of the very few exceptions. Here’s a man I would really love to have met and talk to. Alas, I can’t. Jean Paul died 138 years before I was born; and since I don’t believe in reincarnation, not in this life anyway, I have to make do with his books, of which there are quite a few more for me to enjoy.


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