''Simplicius Simplicissimus'' (german: link=no, Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch) is a
picaresque novel of the lower
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
style, written in 1668 by
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621/22 – 17 August 1676) was a German author. He is best known for his 1669 picaresque novel ''Simplicius Simplicissimus'' (german: link=no, Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus) and the accompanyi ...
and probably published the same year (although bearing the date 1669). Inspired by the events and horrors of the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
which devastated Germany from 1618 to 1648, it is regarded as the first
adventure novel in the German language and the first German novel masterpiece.
The full subtitle is "The account of the life of an odd vagrant named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim: namely where and in what manner he came into this world, what he saw, learned, experienced, and endured therein; also why he again left it of his own free will."
Plot overview
![Grimmelshausen 1669](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Grimmelshausen_1669.jpg)
The novel is told from the perspective of its protagonist Simplicius, a rogue or
picaro
The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for " rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corr ...
typical of the
picaresque novel, as he traverses the tumultuous world of the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
during the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
. Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he was so simple that he did not know what his own name was. After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and to an alternate world inhabited by
mermen Mermen may refer to:
* The Mermen, a music group
*Merman
Mermen, the male counterparts of the mythical female mermaids, are legendary creatures, which are male human from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down, but may assume normal hum ...
. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage himself, denouncing the world as corrupt.
Reception and legacy
Literary criticism
The novel is considered by some to contain autobiographic elements, inspired by Grimmelshausen's experience in the war. It has been reported that as a child Grimmelshausen was kidnapped by Hessian and Croatian troops where he eventually served as a musketeer. The historian Robert Ergang, however, draws upon Gustav Könnecke's ''Quellen und Forschungen zur Lebensgeschichte Grimmelshausens'' to assert that "the events related in the novel ''Simplicissimus'' could hardly have been autobiographical since
rimmelshausenlived a peaceful existence in quiet towns and villages on the fringe of the Black Forest and that the material he incorporated in his work was not taken from actual experience, but was either borrowed from the past, collected from hearsay, or created by a vivid imagination."
Adaptions
Literary adaptions
The adventures of Simplicissimus became so popular that they were reproduced by authors in other European countries. ''Simplicissimus'' was recreated in French, English, and Turkish. A Hungarian ''Simplicissimus'' (''Ungarischer oder Dacianischer Simplicissimus'') was published in 1683. The author remained anonymous but is now generally considered to be
Breslau-born
Daniel Speer.
Opera
Johann Strauss II
Johann Baptist Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (german: links=no, Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed ov ...
composed
an operetta based on the novel.
20th-century composer
Karl Amadeus Hartmann wrote the anti-war opera ''
Simplicius Simplicissimus'' for
chamber orchestra
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numbe ...
in the mid-1930s, with contributions to the
libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...
by his teacher
Hermann Scherchen
Hermann Scherchen (21 June 1891 – 12 June 1966) was a German conductor.
Life
Scherchen was born in Berlin. Originally a violist, he played among the violas of the Bluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens. He conducted in Riga ...
. It opens:
It was first performed in 1948; Hartmann scored it for full orchestra in 1956. The chamber version (properly ''Des Simplicius Simplicissimus Jugend'') was revived by the
Stuttgart State Opera
The Staatsoper Stuttgart (Stuttgart State Opera) is a German opera company based in Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Staatsorchester Stuttgart serves as its resident orchestra.
History
Performances of operas, ballet a ...
in 2004.
TV series
, a historically dramatised TV series based on the book was produced by
ZDF
ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...
in 1975.
Comic strip
The story was adapted into a newspaper comic strip by Raymond Lavigne and Gilbert Bloch in 1954.
Cultural legacy
Town mascot: ''Jägerken von Soest''
''The Hunter of Soest'' (german: Der Jäger von Soest) is one of the aliases Simplicius uses in the novel. The city of
Soest developed this into the local mascot (the little hunter of Soest) in 1976. Every year a citizen is selected, who then gets to represent the town and charitable projects of his choice in costume.
''Simplicissimus House'' in Renchen
The is a museum in the town of Renchen. It opened in 1998 and focuses on the reception of Grimmelshausen's works in
modern art
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...
.
Right in front of it stands a 1977 bronze statue by
Giacomo Manzù, showing Simplicius in his ''Hunter of Soest'' character.
Literary references
Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus is used throughout John le Carré's novel ''
A Perfect Spy
''A Perfect Spy'' (1986) is a novel by British author John le Carré about the mental and moral dissolution of a high-level intelligence-officer. Major aspects of the novel are lifted from the real life of the author, including the relationsh ...
'' (1986) as Magnus Pym's permanent key for one-time pad coding. More importantly, Pym's own life is represented as a picaresque: a boy dragged along in his father's career of frauds, and a man in the British intelligence service, making up lies and exaggerations about his life.
Grimmelshausen was used in other Le Carré novels as well. Le Carré was a medieval German scholar (as was his character George Smiley).
Smiley sold a prized Grimmelshausen first edition at the beginning of ''
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' (in a fit of pique, because Ann had spent most of his pension check on an excursion with her latest lover).
Editions
English translations include:
''The Adventurous Simplicissimus'' trans. Alfred Thomas Scrope Goodrick, London: William Heinemann, 1912. See als
Project Gutenberg copyan
later edition with new intro''The Simplicissimus Project'' the 1912 trans. by A. T. S. Goodrick with material added by students at The College of William and Mary during spring 2002.
'Simplicius Simplicissimus' J.J.C.von Grimmelshausen translated and foreword by George Schulz-Behrend 1976. 'The Adventure of Simplicicius Simplicissimus' (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture) George Schulz-Behrend 1993.
*''Simplicissimus'', 2nd ed., trans. Mike Mitchell, Dedalus, 2006. Shortlisted for the
Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
*''Simplicissimus, The German Adventurer'', trans. John C. Osborne, Newfound Press, 2008.
''Simplicius Simplicissimus'' trans. Monte Adair, 1986/2012. Free download.
trans. J.A. Underwood, Penguin Classics,
The German text is publicly available through Project Gutenberg
PDFs of the original German-language edition, bearing the date 1669 but probably published (according to Dünnhaupt) already in 1668, may be downloaded fro
the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruheand fro
Notes
References
External links
{{Authority control
1668 novels
German novels
Picaresque novels
17th-century German literature
German adventure novels
Thirty Years' War in popular culture
Mermaid novels
Novels adapted into comics
Novels adapted into operas
German novels adapted into television shows
First-person narrative novels
War novels