Ein Ring

by Paul Heyse

Paul Heyse's Buch 'Ein Ring' ist eine meisterhafte Erzählung, die den Leser in die Welt des 19. Jahrhunderts entführt. Der Roman erzählt die Geschichte einer verbotenen Liebe zwischen einer jungen Gräfin und einem adligen Rebell und die verheerenden Konsequenzen, die ihre Beziehung mit sich bringt. Heyse's literarischer Stil zeichnet sich durch seine detaillierte Beschreibung der sozialen Normen und Klassenunterschiede dieser Zeit aus. Seine Prosa ist elegant und einfühlsam, mit einer bemerkenswerten Tiefe und Komplexität, die den Leser in den Bann zieht und nicht mehr loslässt. 'Ein Ring' ist ein Klassiker der deutschen Literatur, der bis heute relevante Themen und moralische Dilemmata behandelt, die auch in der modernen Gesellschaft von Bedeutung sind. Das Buch bietet eine fesselnde Handlung, interessante Charaktere und einen tiefgreifenden Einblick in die psychologische Dynamik menschlicher Beziehungen.

34 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 2, 2009

About the author

Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a distinguished German writer and translator. A member of two important literary societies, the Tunnel über der Spree in Berlin and Die Krokodile in Munich, he wrote novels, poetry, 177 short stories, and about sixty dramas. The sum of Heyse's many and varied productions made him a dominant figure among German men of letters.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1910 "as a tribute to the consummate artistry, permeated with idealism, which he has demonstrated during his long productive career as a lyric poet, dramatist, novelist and writer of world-renowned short stories."

Reviews

[Norbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

In addition to 180 novellas, eight novels and 68 dramas, Paul Heyse wrote countless poems and translated works by Italian authors. During his lifetime (1830-1914), the winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize for Literature and companion of Gottfried Keller, Fontane and Storm was one of the most widely read authors, but he is now almost forgotten.

The autobiographical novella "A Ring" from 1904 describes a love that is reciprocated but unfulfilled. Heyse's bedridden maternal aunt recalls her only real love in retrospect. When she was already forty years old, she was courted by a Frenchman ten years her junior. As part of Frankfurt's upper class and a mother of three, she once hesitated, but now on her deathbed she regrets her hesitation and recounts the events of that time to her nephew.

All this reads smoothly, despite some French or Yiddish terms, and is not kitschy. If Paul Heyse's work were not in the public domain, I would probably never have read this novella, but I liked it - in any case, I did not find it worse than works by Theodor Storm or Gottfried Keller.