 First edition frontispiece | |
| Author | Adelbert von Chamisso |
|---|---|
| Original title | Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte |
| Translator | Leopold von Loewenstein-Wertheim |
| Language | German |
Publication date | 1814 |
| Publication place | Germany |
| ISBN | 978-1-84749-080-3 |
| OCLC | 246906885 |
Peter Schlemihl is the title character of an 1814 novella, Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (Peter Schlemihl's Miraculous Story), [1] written in German by exiled French aristocrat Adelbert von Chamisso.
In the story, Schlemihl sells his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet (the gold sack of Fortunatus), only to find that a man without a shadow is shunned by human societies. The woman he loves rejects him, and he himself becomes consumed with guilt. Yet when the devil wants to return his shadow to him in exchange for his soul, Schlemihl, as the friend of God, rejects the proposal and throws away the bottomless wallet besides. He seeks refuge in nature and travels around the world in scientific exploration, with the aid of seven-league boots. When overtaken with sickness, he is reconciled with his fellow men, who take care of him, and in regard for his sickness do not look for his shadow. Finally, however, he returns to his studies of nature and finds his deepest satisfaction in communion with nature and his own better self. [2]
The story, intended for children, was widely read and the character became a common cultural reference in many countries. People generally remembered the element of the shadow better than how the story ended, simplifying Chamisso's lesson to the idiom "don't sell your shadow to the Devil."
The story popularized the Yiddish word schlemiel for a hopelessly incompetent person, a bungler. [3]
The story was performed on American television, in a 1953 episode of Your Favorite Story , starring DeForest Kelley as the title character. [4]
Georges Schwizgebel's 2004 paint-on-glass animation film The Man with No Shadow (L'Homme sans ombre) portrays a slight variation on the original story: after being rejected by his lover and society, the main character returns to the devil. Rather than getting back his shadow, he trades his riches for a pair of seven-league boots and travels the world in search of a place where he will be accepted without a shadow. In the end, he becomes a Wayang shadow puppeteer in Indonesia because he can manipulate the puppets directly without affecting their silhouettes. [5]
Peter Schlemihl appears in a German-language story by Chamisso's friend (and fellow member of the Serapion Brethren) E.T.A. Hoffmann, "The New Year's Eve Adventure ," published in 1815. [6] A portion of this story, "The Story of the Lost Reflection," was adapted by French writers Jules Barbier and Michel Carré into the fourth act of their 1851 play Les contes fantastiques d'Hoffmann, then adapted by Barbier into the libretto of the Jacques Offenbach opera Les contes d'Hoffmann , in which Peter Schlemil [sic] is a romantic rival to the protagonist Hoffmann. [7]
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffmann appears as the hero. He is also the author of the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is based. The ballet Coppélia is based on two other stories that Hoffmann wrote, while Schumann's Kreisleriana is based on Hoffmann's character Johannes Kreisler.
Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet, writer and botanist. He was commonly known in French as Adelbert de Chamissode Boncourt, a name referring to the family estate at Boncourt.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1814.
The Tales of Hoffmann is an opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in October 1880, four months before the premiere.
Seven-league boots are an element in European folklore. The boots allow the person wearing them to take strides of seven leagues per step, resulting in great speed. The boots are often presented by a magical character to the protagonist to aid in the completion of a significant task. From the context of English language, "seven-league boots" originally arose as a translation from the French bottes de sept lieues, popularised by Charles Perrault's fairy tales.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a 1985 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was awarded the Tanizaki Prize in 1985. The English translation by Alfred Birnbaum was released in 1991. A new translation by Jay Rubin will be released December 2024. A strange and dreamlike novel, its chapters alternate between two narratives—"Hard-Boiled Wonderland" and "The End of the World".
"The Shadow" is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The tale was first published in 1847.
Dark Romanticism is a literary sub-genre of Romanticism, reflecting popular fascination with the irrational, the demonic and the grotesque. Often conflated with Gothic fiction, it has shadowed the euphoric Romantic movement ever since its 18th-century beginnings. Edgar Allan Poe is often celebrated as one of the supreme exponents of the tradition. Dark Romanticism focuses on human fallibility, self-destruction, judgement, punishment, as well as the psychological effects of guilt and sin.
August Brunetti-Pisano, was an Austrian composer.
Schlemiel is a Yiddish term meaning "inept/incompetent person" or "fool". It is a common archetype in Jewish humor, and so-called "schlemiel jokes" depict the schlemiel falling into unfortunate situations.
The Serapion Brethren is the name of a literary and social circle, formed in Berlin in 1818 by the German romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann and several of his friends. The Serapion Brethren also is the title of a four-volume collection of Hoffmann's novellas and fairytales that appeared in 1819, 1820, and 1821.
Der Kanon or more precisely Marcel-Reich-Ranickis Kanon is a large anthology of exemplary works of German literature. Edited by the literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (1920–2013), he called the anthology, announced on 18 June 2001 in the German news magazine Der Spiegel under the title "The Canon of worthwhile German Works", his magnum opus. The five parts appeared from 2002 to 2006 published by Insel Verlag: 1. Novels (2002), 2. Tales/Stories (2003), 3. Dramatic Works (2004), 4. Poetry (2005), and 5. Essays (2006). As expected, the anthology met with opposition and criticism, and even the idea of an anthology was questioned, but Reich-Ranicki called this questioning "incomprehensible, because the lack of a canon would mean relapse into barbarism. Reich-Ranicki sought to differentiate his anthology from previous compilations in his hope to imagine a "reader judge" such as teachers, students, librarians, who would need to draw from this canon because they were in the "first line of those who deal with literature professionally."
Charles Henri Pille was a French painter and illustrator.
Albert Husson was a French playwright and theatre director.
Peter Beauvais was a German television film director and scriptwriter. As a director for three decades, he helped pioneer and significantly influenced the development of German television.
Aras Ören is a writer of Turkish origin, currently living in Germany. He was born in November 1939 in Istanbul, and moved to Berlin in 1969. He was editor of the SFB and head of the Turkish editorial team of Radio Multikulti of the RBB. In 1981, he received an honorary prize from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. In 1985, he was awarded the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize. In 1999 he was a lecturer at the University of Tübingen. Since 2012 he has been a member of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
The Man with No Shadow is a Canadian-Swiss animated short film, directed by Georges Schwizgebel and released in 2004. Adapted from Adelbert von Chamisso's 1814 novella Peter Schlemihl, the film centres on a man who sells his shadow in exchange for wealth, only to become rejected by society for his difference.
Emma Sophia Buchheim was an English translator and educator. A lecturer in German at King’s College London for thirty-five years, she published translations and annotated editions of German works. She also compiled language primers for beginners of prose, poetry, and drama, and produced retellings of folktales and mythological stories.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Chamisso, Adalbert von". The Nuttall Encyclopædia . London and New York: Frederick Warne.
Media related to Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte at Wikimedia Commons
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