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lobelia321What even is this, and what did I read? Some platforms market this as a 'novel' but reader be aware: it is not a novel. It is a collection of loosely-connected fragments. Some are letters, some are diary entries, most are rambling musings. Apparently, all of them are autobiographical, with 'Lucinde' standing in for Friedrich Schlegel's lover (and later wife), Dorothea Schlegel. This is why took up this book to begin with: I wanted to fill a 52 book reading challenge prompt: two books by author who are somehow related to each other.
Weird and wild as it is, it did keep me reading, so there is that: the hey-look-mummy, no-DNF factor. What is also good to remember that not all books of this era (it was first published in 1799 -- side bar: how on earth did this ever find a publisher? 'twas a different time) are of the Jane Austen or Ann Radcliffe variety. This one (as are books I've recently read by Johanna Schopenhauer, Dorothea Schlegel and Friederike Helene Unger) is quite raunchy. Divorce happens. Extramarital sex happens. Women having orgasms happens. God is gone ('Gott ist weg'), and the only deities invoked are 'Götter' (gods) or some form of nature force (it is Romanticism, after all).
Sensibility reigns, and the author absolutely indulges in all the introspective swooning that any teenage diarist would be proud of (and cringe at in later years). There are a lot of exclamations, as if emotions cannot be contained by syntax. Above all: plot what-informal-second-person-singular plot. (By this, I mean the German 'Du' by which Schlegel addresses his adored woman.
A flavour:
'Es ist Ehe, ewige Einheit und Verbindung unsrer Geister, nicht bloß für das was wir diese oder jene Welt nennen.'
'It is marriage, eternal marriage und union of our spirits, not merely for that which we call this or that world.' I'm thinking today's regency romance writers would say 'ton' for 'world', and the regency romance has taken as read societal strictures as plot engines. The real people of the era (admittedly 1799 is a bit pre-regency but then again, romance writers stray into Georgian territory with ease) were not nearly so strictured. Or at least, the bohème faction of Romantics wasn't.
'Fühlt man es, so muß man es sagen wollen, und was man sagen will, darf man auch schreiben können.'
'If one feels it one must want to say it, and what one must want to say, one must be permitted to be able to write.' Yes, the original too is that convoluted. But the sentiment: freedom from convention!
Let us all feel!
Here is the 'Du': 'Wirf auch du sie von dir, liebe Freundin, alle die Reste von falscher Scham, wie ich oft did fatalen Kleider von dir riß und in schöner Anarchie umherstreute.'
'Throw them off you, dear woman friend, all the remains of false modesty, as I so often tore those darn clothes off you and strewed about in wonderful anarchy.'
How about some erotic cringe:
'Auch das Mädchen weiß in ihrer naiven Unwissenheit doch schon alles, noch ehe der Blitz der Liebe in ihrem zarten Schoß gezündet, und die verschloßne Knospe zum vollen Blumenkelch der Lust entfaltet hat.'
'The maiden even knows in her naive innocence everything already, even before the lightning flash of love has enflamed in her tender lap, and unfolded the closed bud to a full flower cup of lust.'
My translation is made on the fly (by my human me) so forgive the cloddishness. 'Schoß' is literally 'lap' but also refers to womb, groin, genitals, except that the author wants to be metaphorical.
Much celebration of unreflecting hetero-ness is on display here, e.g. women are passive; women are expressions of 'Woman'. Dorothea, how could you love this man? A flavour of musings on the binary:
'Was ist denn aber das Bestimmende oder das Bestimmte selbst? In der Männlichkeit ist es das Namenlose. Und was ist das Namenlose in der Weiblichkeit? -- das Unbestimmte.'
'But what is it, that defining or that definitive itself? In masculinity it is the nameless. And what is the nameless in femininity? -- the undefined.'
Of course it is, Fritz. There there, you binary gnome. If only this sort of thing had ceased in 1799 and hadn't shaped my own youth.
Some hilarity:
'Es wäre ja grob mit einem reizenden Mädchen so zu reden, als ob sie ein geschlechtsloses Amphibion wäre.'
'It would be rude to talk with a charming girl as if she were a sexless amphibian.'
This may be my new brand: geschlechtsloses Amphibion. Especially as 'Amphibion', a very weird Greek noun with a neutral grammatical gender 'das' (today's usage is 'die Amphibie', feminine).
Weird and wild as it is, it did keep me reading, so there is that: the hey-look-mummy, no-DNF factor. What is also good to remember that not all books of this era (it was first published in 1799 -- side bar: how on earth did this ever find a publisher? 'twas a different time) are of the Jane Austen or Ann Radcliffe variety. This one (as are books I've recently read by Johanna Schopenhauer, Dorothea Schlegel and Friederike Helene Unger) is quite raunchy. Divorce happens. Extramarital sex happens. Women having orgasms happens. God is gone ('Gott ist weg'), and the only deities invoked are 'Götter' (gods) or some form of nature force (it is Romanticism, after all).
Sensibility reigns, and the author absolutely indulges in all the introspective swooning that any teenage diarist would be proud of (and cringe at in later years). There are a lot of exclamations, as if emotions cannot be contained by syntax. Above all: plot what-informal-second-person-singular plot. (By this, I mean the German 'Du' by which Schlegel addresses his adored woman.
A flavour:
'Es ist Ehe, ewige Einheit und Verbindung unsrer Geister, nicht bloß für das was wir diese oder jene Welt nennen.'
'It is marriage, eternal marriage und union of our spirits, not merely for that which we call this or that world.' I'm thinking today's regency romance writers would say 'ton' for 'world', and the regency romance has taken as read societal strictures as plot engines. The real people of the era (admittedly 1799 is a bit pre-regency but then again, romance writers stray into Georgian territory with ease) were not nearly so strictured. Or at least, the bohème faction of Romantics wasn't.
'Fühlt man es, so muß man es sagen wollen, und was man sagen will, darf man auch schreiben können.'
'If one feels it one must want to say it, and what one must want to say, one must be permitted to be able to write.' Yes, the original too is that convoluted. But the sentiment: freedom from convention!
Let us all feel!
Here is the 'Du': 'Wirf auch du sie von dir, liebe Freundin, alle die Reste von falscher Scham, wie ich oft did fatalen Kleider von dir riß und in schöner Anarchie umherstreute.'
'Throw them off you, dear woman friend, all the remains of false modesty, as I so often tore those darn clothes off you and strewed about in wonderful anarchy.'
How about some erotic cringe:
'Auch das Mädchen weiß in ihrer naiven Unwissenheit doch schon alles, noch ehe der Blitz der Liebe in ihrem zarten Schoß gezündet, und die verschloßne Knospe zum vollen Blumenkelch der Lust entfaltet hat.'
'The maiden even knows in her naive innocence everything already, even before the lightning flash of love has enflamed in her tender lap, and unfolded the closed bud to a full flower cup of lust.'
My translation is made on the fly (by my human me) so forgive the cloddishness. 'Schoß' is literally 'lap' but also refers to womb, groin, genitals, except that the author wants to be metaphorical.
Much celebration of unreflecting hetero-ness is on display here, e.g. women are passive; women are expressions of 'Woman'. Dorothea, how could you love this man? A flavour of musings on the binary:
'Was ist denn aber das Bestimmende oder das Bestimmte selbst? In der Männlichkeit ist es das Namenlose. Und was ist das Namenlose in der Weiblichkeit? -- das Unbestimmte.'
'But what is it, that defining or that definitive itself? In masculinity it is the nameless. And what is the nameless in femininity? -- the undefined.'
Of course it is, Fritz. There there, you binary gnome. If only this sort of thing had ceased in 1799 and hadn't shaped my own youth.
Some hilarity:
'Es wäre ja grob mit einem reizenden Mädchen so zu reden, als ob sie ein geschlechtsloses Amphibion wäre.'
'It would be rude to talk with a charming girl as if she were a sexless amphibian.'
This may be my new brand: geschlechtsloses Amphibion. Especially as 'Amphibion', a very weird Greek noun with a neutral grammatical gender 'das' (today's usage is 'die Amphibie', feminine).