XXXI
Z. records experiences from his brief time at the Western Front at the beginning of the First World War, where he witnessed scenes that make him question the naïve patriotism of so many of his countrymen. Meanwhile, L. wins two disciples in Meta Nackedey and Kunigunde Rosenstiel, whose descriptions TM modeled on his real-life acquaintances Ida Herz (1894–1984) and Käte Hamburger (1896–1992). The presence of these devoted hangers-on strengthens both the Christological aspects of the work and its status as a “Nietzsche-novel.” Back home from the War and recovering from a typhoid infection, Z. listens to L. describe the ideas that led him to compose Gesta Romanorum.
Time of composition: October 9–30, 1945. Time of narration: After April 1944. Narrated time: 1914–1915.
| But we never got to Paris! | Note Z.’s unreflective use of the first-person plural throughout these pages. |
| Je suis la dernière! […] Méchants! | French: “I am the last one! […] You evil ones!” |
| an anxious, overcautious supreme commander | TM (or Z.) seems to be conflating the officer who gave the order to retreat, Lt. Col. Richard Hentsch (1869–1918), who was indeed regarded as anxious and overcautious, with German Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (1848–1916), the nephew of the even more famous general Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891). |
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| elegiac habit of beginning every sentence | A first reference to elegy, a theme that will culminate with L.’s final composition, the Lamentation of Doctor Faustus. However, it is here treated in a comedic fashion. There is also a long tradition of anti-Semitic prejudice regarding the way Jews supposedly deform the German language. Z.’s description of Rosenstiel’s speech patterns is a possible example of this, made all the more poignant by the fact that Rosenstiel’s real-life model, the philosopher and literature professor Käte Hamburger, was a superb prose stylist. |
| Schildknapp had introduced Adrian to the book | |
| Rüdiger of the same-colored eyes | |
| | From Latin testis: witness. Traditional name for the narrator of an oratorio. Critics have pointed out that the orchestration of L.’s Gesta Romanorum, along with the use of a testis, moves the piece into close vicinity to Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat (1918). |
| | French: “central/most important piece.” |
| “Birth of Saint Gregory the Pope” | Like all the other stories summarized here, this is an actual tale from the Gesta Romanorum. TM would later use it as the subject for his novel The Holy Sinner (1951). |
| “Wolf’s Glen” […] “Bridal Wreath” | References to the Romantic devil’s pact opera Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber. |
| that person would be called art’s redeemer | This passage adds the theme of “redemption” to the previously existing one of “breakthrough” and highlights L.’s endeavor to redeem art from the “intellectual coldness” and isolation into which it drifted during the nineteenth century. At the same time, L.’s dismissal of the “bliss of harmonic music’s resolved cadences” indicates that he places himself in opposition to the redemptive efforts offered by the “harmonists,” such as the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as well as the “Leonore Overture” and the prisoner’s chorus from Fidelio. |
| An art that is on a first-name basis with humanity | In his essay “What is German?” (1944, based on his 1943 lecture script “The War and the Future”) TM differentiates between a base populism in which “little Mr. Smith or Jones slaps Beethoven on the back and shouts: ‘How are you, old man!’” and the nobler attitude expressed by the line, “Be embraced, ye millions, this kiss to all the world” from the Ninth Symphony. While L.’s claim to an “art that is on a first-name basis with humanity” may thus seem innocuous, even desirable, TM clearly regarded it as full of dangers. |