Inspiration Bonaparte?
Inspiration Bonaparte?: German Culture and Napoleonic Occupation (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)
Seán Allan & Jeffrey L. High (Eds)
Camden House (September 15, 2021)
Hardcover: 328 pages
ISBN-13: 9781640140943
Two hundred years after his death, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) continues to resonate as a fascinating, ambivalent, and polarizing figure. Differences of opinion as to whether Bonaparte should be viewed as the executor of the principles of the French Revolution or as the figure who was principally responsible for their corruption are as pronounced today as they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Contributing to what had been an uneasy German relationship with the French Revolution, the rise of Bonaparte was accompanied by a pattern of Franco-German hostilities that inspired both enthusiastic support and outraged dissent in the German-speaking states.
The fourteen essays that comprise Inspiration Bonaparte examine the mythologization of Napoleon in German literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and explore the significant impact of Napoleonic occupation on a broad range of fields including philosophy, painting, politics, the sciences, education, and film. As the contributions from leading scholars emphasize, the contradictory attitudes toward Bonaparte held by so many prominent German thinkers are a reflection of his enduring status as a figure through whom the trauma of shattered late-Enlightenment expectations of sociopolitical progress and evolving concepts of identity politics is mediated.
SEÁN ALLAN is Professor of German at the University of St Andrews. JEFFREY L. HIGH is Professor of German Studies at California State University, Long Beach.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Napoleon: Art, Literature, and Occupation
1: Prelude-Pre-Occupation Bonaparte:
Historical and Literary Conquerors in Schiller's Life, Thought, and Works
Jeffrey L. High
2: Schiller's Johanna and Collin's Bianca as Women('s)-Liberators in Anti-Napoleonic Drama
Rebecca Stewart
3: Friedrich Hölderlin, the French Revolution, and Napoleon: Politics, Poetry, Philosophy
Laura Anna Macor
4: The Anecdote on the Battlefield: Napoleon-Kleist-Kluge
Christian Moser
5: "Der große Schauspieler, Napoleon Buonaparte": August von Kotzebue's Antitheatrical Politics
Elystan Griffiths
6: An Ingenious Tyrant: The Representation of Napoleon Bonaparte by German Women Writers
Elisabeth Krimmer
7: Icons of Resistance: Kleist, Le Musée Napoléon, and Queen Luise of Prussia
Seán Allan
Part II: Napoleon: Political Science and Natural Science
8: The European Machine God: The Image of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Political Writings of Jean Paul
Helmut Schneider
9: Saul Ascher's Napoleon
Bernd Fischer
10: Napoleon's Campaigns: Models for "French" Revolutionary Science Abroad and at Home?
Mary Orr
11: Napoleonic Occupation and the Militarization of the Sciences:
The Case of Johannes Scherr and the Zurich Polytechnic
Andrew Cusack
Part III: Inspiration Bonaparte: German Receptions from Vormärz to the Present
12: "We are all possessed"! Napoleon and Inspiration in German Naturalist Drama
Michael White (University of St Andrews)
13: "Arnold Schoenberg's Setting of Byron's Ode to Napoleon: Fighting Hitler's Regime in Byron's and Beethoven's Wake
Wolf Kittler (University of California, Santa Barbara)
14: The Emperor's Clothes: Napoleon as a Screen Icon
Susanne Kord (University College London)
Notes on Contributors
something contemporary - the Hannoverian Vater unser - Lords prayer - to balance Heine, my free translation.
Stiefvater der du bist in Paris Stepfather who you are in Paris Vermaledeit sei dein Name Cursed is your name Dein Reich komme uns vom Hals Your reign should sod off Dein Wille geschehe weder im Himmel noch auf Erden Your will mustn't happen in heaven nor on earth Unser tägliches Brot raube uns nicht gänzlich Don't rob us completely our daily bread Verzeihe, daß wir dich nicht lieben, wie wir verzeihen, daß du ins nicht liebest Pardon us that we don't love you as we pardon you that you don't love us. Führe uns nicht in größeres Elend, sondern befreie uns von der Regie, den Douanan und allen Hungerleidern, Don't lead us into more misery but liberate us from regulations, customs and all starveling, Denn dein ist das Reich des Jammerns and Elends, Spott und Hohns, von nun an bis in alle Ewigkeit. Amen Yours is the rule of wailing and misery, mockery and scorn from now on till eternity. Amen