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Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dil Ulenspiegel
Ein "kurtzweilig Lesen von Dil Ulenspiegel" - ja, kurzweilig sind sie in der Tat, die Possen des Till Eulenspiegel. Die knapp 100 Geschichten um den berühmtesten Narren der deutschen Geschichte haben bis heute nichts von ihrem Witz und ihrer Bissigkeit verloren. Wolfgang Lindow hat sie auf der Grundlage des ersten Drucks von 1515 modernisiert und in diesem Band zusammengestellt.
- GenresClassics
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1510
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July 31, 2017The trick with a review is working out how to start, the problem for Dil or Till Ulenspiegel is working out how to make fools of people, but he at least can fall back on shitting in their bed, or in the middle of the floor, or on their food, this due to the current limitations of technology, is an option not available to me.
I started reading because the book was small format unlike The Art of the Northern renaissance which is not built for travel. For a cheap edition I found it pretty handsome, Till's life told here in 95 histories on average each of three printed pages including a reproduction of the woodcut illustrations of the 1515 edition, these are quality woodcuts too - each individual, none recycled and reused for multiple stories .
My Grandmother once told me that Till came from the same town as she did, by which she meant the town nearest to where her father had been born, she liked to model elective affinities in that way, since I am gullible and naive I believed her although it turns out in this version at least to be untrue. The book runs from Till's birth and baptism near to Brunswick to his death and burial by Mölln in between birth and death he wanders about, the histories generally take place in different towns although he sometimes returns to the same one twice. He journeys through Germany sticking to a particular swath of country if you imagine a curved line from Cologne down to Prague, curving to the east and another to the left of it that at it northernmost edge touches on the Baltic coast, end apart from a trip to Rome, and one to Paris, Poland, and possibly with the King of Denmark then Ulenspiegel pretty much restricts his joking to the territory between those two lines.
The joking is not all about shitting, you may be surprised that I found it less scatological than I expected from other reviews. The most typical jokes and tricks depend on Ulenspiegel interpreting literally something that is meant figuratively, generally he works as an apprentice in a number of trades and does exactly what his master says leaving the latter to fume 'that's not what I meant, its only what I said'. As I said I was travelling as I read and the public service announcement cries out to one's inner Ulenspiegel - if you see anything suspicious please report it... because glance around, who or what isn't suspicious? The truly contentious citizen would be continually on the telephone to the police, buttonholing the train staff, and all uniformed and allegedly responsible people, of course the expression is figurative, it relies on pragmatics, we known that what the speaker means is if you see a person wearing a suicide vest and carrying a black suitcase labelled 'bomb' please contact the authorities .
I fear I may over selling the stories to put them in the context of masters and apprentices in early modern Europe or to invoke the big guns of Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World. The stories do mostly treat cases of striking back against petty authority figures, priests, master craftsmen (blacksmiths, bakers, brewers, tailors), university teachers, one robber baron, one great Lord, generally pointing out that they are not so big or so clever, taking a shit on their vanity and self importance whether by making good progress in teaching a donkey to read (29th history) or in entering a merchants house through the window(74th history), or refusing monks permission to enter their own monastery (89th history). We regard the modern workplace with Taylorism and workplace discipline as unjust and oppressive, but thus was it ever so, it is nothing new that one's personal liberty might depend upon an employer , and if workplace discipline can weigh heavily how about when you live in the employer's household, eat when they do, rest when they do and sleep only when they allow.Sometimes Ulenspiegel's responses seem like early performance art or absurdist or prematurely surreal as when he spends all night throwing sleeves on a garment by candle light.
So perhaps there is literalism as a substitute for violent rebellion, equally laughter can be a tool of domination belittling others, is it ever just slapstick? A few stories turn on language in other ways, this edition is based on one printed in Strasbourg - High German, but Ulenspiegel wanders in the Middle-Low German realm were magnificently Adieu has become Ade and at this time your mother is firmly your Mum and the story (the 10th) that made me laugh most turns upon hennep and sennep hemp and mustard,a story too scatological for me to dream of repeating in this August and polite company, but anyway the joke relies upon understanding the potential for getting the two mixed up, how comprehensible I wonder was the joke to the Strasbourg reading public of 1515? I imagine the stories circulated in oral form and where brought to together in this Odyssey of practical jokes that end with the return to our common home in 1510, further editions followed from 1515 with a couple of references following in English and one story making its way into Rabelais (who is a rung or two higher in the evolution of humour (or three perhaps, even four), eventually Ulenspiegel suffers that common fate of many early literary heroes of getting his arse wiped, being generally cleaned up and turned into children's literature, though really once you've given him a deep clean there's not an awful lot left...
Dann Ulenspiegal het dis Gewonheit, wa er ein Bueberei thet, da man ihn nit kant, da nam er Kreiden oder Koln und malet uber die Tuer ein Uele und ein Spiegal und schrieb daueber zu latin ' Hic fuit' (p.122)
I started reading because the book was small format unlike The Art of the Northern renaissance which is not built for travel. For a cheap edition I found it pretty handsome, Till's life told here in 95 histories on average each of three printed pages including a reproduction of the woodcut illustrations of the 1515 edition, these are quality woodcuts too - each individual, none recycled and reused for multiple stories .
My Grandmother once told me that Till came from the same town as she did, by which she meant the town nearest to where her father had been born, she liked to model elective affinities in that way, since I am gullible and naive I believed her although it turns out in this version at least to be untrue. The book runs from Till's birth and baptism near to Brunswick to his death and burial by Mölln in between birth and death he wanders about, the histories generally take place in different towns although he sometimes returns to the same one twice. He journeys through Germany sticking to a particular swath of country if you imagine a curved line from Cologne down to Prague, curving to the east and another to the left of it that at it northernmost edge touches on the Baltic coast, end apart from a trip to Rome, and one to Paris, Poland, and possibly with the King of Denmark then Ulenspiegel pretty much restricts his joking to the territory between those two lines.
The joking is not all about shitting, you may be surprised that I found it less scatological than I expected from other reviews. The most typical jokes and tricks depend on Ulenspiegel interpreting literally something that is meant figuratively, generally he works as an apprentice in a number of trades and does exactly what his master says leaving the latter to fume 'that's not what I meant, its only what I said'. As I said I was travelling as I read and the public service announcement cries out to one's inner Ulenspiegel - if you see anything suspicious please report it... because glance around, who or what isn't suspicious? The truly contentious citizen would be continually on the telephone to the police, buttonholing the train staff, and all uniformed and allegedly responsible people, of course the expression is figurative, it relies on pragmatics, we known that what the speaker means is if you see a person wearing a suicide vest and carrying a black suitcase labelled 'bomb' please contact the authorities .
I fear I may over selling the stories to put them in the context of masters and apprentices in early modern Europe or to invoke the big guns of Bakhtin's Rabelais and His World. The stories do mostly treat cases of striking back against petty authority figures, priests, master craftsmen (blacksmiths, bakers, brewers, tailors), university teachers, one robber baron, one great Lord, generally pointing out that they are not so big or so clever, taking a shit on their vanity and self importance whether by making good progress in teaching a donkey to read (29th history) or in entering a merchants house through the window(74th history), or refusing monks permission to enter their own monastery (89th history). We regard the modern workplace with Taylorism and workplace discipline as unjust and oppressive, but thus was it ever so, it is nothing new that one's personal liberty might depend upon an employer , and if workplace discipline can weigh heavily how about when you live in the employer's household, eat when they do, rest when they do and sleep only when they allow.Sometimes Ulenspiegel's responses seem like early performance art or absurdist or prematurely surreal as when he spends all night throwing sleeves on a garment by candle light.
So perhaps there is literalism as a substitute for violent rebellion, equally laughter can be a tool of domination belittling others, is it ever just slapstick? A few stories turn on language in other ways, this edition is based on one printed in Strasbourg - High German, but Ulenspiegel wanders in the Middle-Low German realm were magnificently Adieu has become Ade and at this time your mother is firmly your Mum and the story (the 10th) that made me laugh most turns upon hennep and sennep hemp and mustard,a story too scatological for me to dream of repeating in this August and polite company, but anyway the joke relies upon understanding the potential for getting the two mixed up, how comprehensible I wonder was the joke to the Strasbourg reading public of 1515? I imagine the stories circulated in oral form and where brought to together in this Odyssey of practical jokes that end with the return to our common home in 1510, further editions followed from 1515 with a couple of references following in English and one story making its way into Rabelais (who is a rung or two higher in the evolution of humour (or three perhaps, even four), eventually Ulenspiegel suffers that common fate of many early literary heroes of getting his arse wiped, being generally cleaned up and turned into children's literature, though really once you've given him a deep clean there's not an awful lot left...
Dann Ulenspiegal het dis Gewonheit, wa er ein Bueberei thet, da man ihn nit kant, da nam er Kreiden oder Koln und malet uber die Tuer ein Uele und ein Spiegal und schrieb daueber zu latin ' Hic fuit' (p.122)
August 17, 2024
Ich bin mit der falschen Erwartung an dieses Buch heran gegangen. Ein paar wenige Geschichten kannte ich aus der Schule und dachte, dass auch der Rest (wie der Titel verspricht) ‚kurzweilig’ sein müsse. Offensichtlich war es das für Leute im Mittelalter, aber ich schätze heute finden nur Mario Barth Fans diese Mischung aus Pipi-Kacka-Humor, Misogyny, Abelismus und Antisemitismus noch witzig.
December 2, 2022
Sehr viele Fäkalien Witze
December 11, 2023
der beweis: seit mehr als 500 jahren steckt das teutsche volk in der analen phase.
und, ja, auch ich sage: die geschichten mit der scheiße waren am witzigsten. wenn sie gefehlt hat, hat sie gefehlt und mit ihr blieb meistens auch die kurtzweil aus.
sprachlich teilweise sehr interessant, man versteht das meiste relativ gut. einige sehr schöne formulierungen sind da drin.
kann man gut in der tasche haben für kurze busstrecken uä.
und, ja, auch ich sage: die geschichten mit der scheiße waren am witzigsten. wenn sie gefehlt hat, hat sie gefehlt und mit ihr blieb meistens auch die kurtzweil aus.
sprachlich teilweise sehr interessant, man versteht das meiste relativ gut. einige sehr schöne formulierungen sind da drin.
kann man gut in der tasche haben für kurze busstrecken uä.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews