XII
At Halle, two of the most influential professors are Kolonat Nonnenmacher, who lectures on the pre-Socratics, and the systematic theologian Ehrenfried Kumpf. Nonnenmacher expands L.’s knowledge of Pythagoras and thereby shapes the way the young man thinks about music. Kumpf is a parody of Martin Luther and highlights the vulgar, anti-intellectualist, and downright xenophobic tendencies that TM believed Luther bequeathed to German culture.
Time of composition: February 8–20 (?), 1944. Time of narration: Summer 1943. Narrated time: 1903–1905.
| | Otto II (955–983) was the father of Otto III, whose grave TM relocated to Kaisersaschern in chapter VI. This strengthens the impression that L. has not entirely left his hometown behind by moving to Halle. |
| | A “magic square” is a square array of positive integers from 1 to n arranged in such a way that the rows, columns, and main diagonals all add up to the same sum. This equivalence, as well as the fact that each number can occur only once, symbolically links the magic square to the tone rows that L. will eventually make the basis of his music. |
| | Dürer’s copper etching Melencolia I (1514) is one of the most important visual reference points in DF (see the cover of this Reader’s Guide). It depicts a brooding angel surrounded by various symbols related not only to alchemy, but also to the early modern trope of melancholia. Among these is a magic square with four numbers to each side. |
| | Greek: “he himself has said it.” A common phrase amongst the disciples of Pythagoras, but also a likely nod to the blind obedience that characterized Nazism. |
| | Greek.: “that which carries its goal (telos) within itself.” A central concept of Aristotelian philosophy; here possibly also another wink to Nazism, with its rhetoric of destiny and its emphasis on blind obedience. |
| Instead of “gradually” he said | Kumpf expresses himself in an archaic idiom that more closely resembles sixteenth-century rather than twentieth-century German. TM took many of his phrases directly from the writings of Martin Luther, Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus, and other early modern sources. |
| | Latin: “If only the devil weren’t a liar and murderer!” A quotation from the Chapbook. |
| | Latin: “You say and do not act.” A quotation from Simplicissimus. |
| | A common name for the devil, which we already encountered in chapter IV, where we are introduced to the farm dog Kaschperl. |
| | Greek: “Away with you!” See Matthew 4:10. |
| | A parody of the famous anecdote about Luther hurling an inkwell at Satan, who tried to tempt Luther while he was translating the Bible into German. |