''The Marble Statue'' (german: Das Marmorbild) is an 1818 novella by the German writer

Joseph von Eichendorff Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (10 March 178826 November 1857) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism.Cf. J. A. Cuddon: ' ...

. Set around

Lucca Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one ...

, it is about a man who struggles to choose between piety, represented by a musician and a beautiful maiden, and a world of

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

, represented by a statue of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

Plot

On a summer night, the young man Florio finds himself participating in festivities near the gate to

. He becomes acquainted with the famous musician Fortunato, a beautiful maiden he later learns is named Bianca, and the eloquent cavalier Donati. Donati greets Florio as an old friend and knows many details about his youth, but Florio cannot recall having met Donati before. Florio stays at an inn in Lucca but is unable to sleep and goes for a nightly walk. He finds a marble statue of

which seems oddly familiar, reminding him of his youth but also alarming him. Revisiting the statue the next morning, he ends up at an extravagant garden surrounding a palace where he spots a beautiful, singing lady whose features are strikingly similar to those of the statue. He encounters Donati who says the lady is a wealthy relative of his and offers to introduce Florio to her in the near future. The following morning, Donati invites Florio to go hunting, but the latter refuses because it is Sunday and he wants to go to church. Fortunato invites him to a party in the evening. There, Florio encounters a masked woman in a Greek robe, or possibly two women he conflates. When the woman invites him to visit her home some day and shows her face, Florio recognises her as the lady from the garden. Late at night, Fortunato introduces Florio to the host of the party, who is Bianca's uncle Pietro, as well as Bianca herself, but she is disappointed by Florio's coldness and distraction. Several days later, Donati brings Florio to the lady's palace. After receiving them in the garden, the lady brings Florio into a chamber, lays down and begins to undress. Florio then hears what sounds like Fortunato singing a pious song outside the palace. When Florio utters a short prayer, a thunderstorm begins to approach, the lady becomes pale and statues begin to come alive, prompting Florio to quickly leave the palace. When he goes back to Donati's villa to ask what happened, he only finds a lowly hut and a gardener who does not know who Donati is. Florio rides from Lucca and is joined by three riders who turn out to be Fortunato, Pietro and Bianca. They see a dilapidated ruin in the distance and Florio recognises it as the lady's palace. Pietro and Fortunato explain it is a former temple of Venus and say there are legends about people who have been tempted by spirits there.

Themes

Eichendorff's target in ''The Marble Statue'' was the tendency in

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

to treat

as a religion. He used the statue of Venus to represent an allure that leads to the rejection of life and real people. ''The Marble Statue'' is seen a modern adaptation of the traditional Venusberg myth, in which Venus lures men through her beauty, causing them to lead sinful lives, for which they usually fall victim to damnation.

Publication history

''The Marble Statue'' was first published in the autumn of 1818 as part of 's ''Frauentaschenbuch für das Jahr 1819'' (). In 1826 it was published in a volume with Echendorff's novella ''

Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing ''Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing'' (german: Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts, ) is a novella by Joseph von Eichendorff. Completed in 1823, it was first printed in 1826. The work is regarded as a pinnacle of musical prose. Eichendorff created an ope ...

'' and a number of his poems.

Reception

When ''The Marble Statue'' first was published, it was criticised for being too fantastical, fragmented and confusing. In the 20th century it was criticised for being rigid and for presenting a black and white conflict between redeeming Christianity and damnable paganism. In the late 20th century this was reevaluated and critics have pointed to the ambiguity of overlapping Christian and pagan elements and how the sexual imagery subverts the supposed moralistic message of the story.

Adaptations

* The 1922 opera ''

'' by

Othmar Schoeck Othmar Schoeck (1 September 1886 – 8 March 1957) was a Swiss Romantic classical composer, opera composer, musician, and conductor. He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of ...

is based on both ''The Marble Statue'' and

Prosper Mérimée Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...

's short story " La Vénus d'Ille".

References

External links

Full text in English
at Michael Haldane's website

at

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libr ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marble Statue 1818 novels German novellas Greek and Roman deities in fiction Novels adapted into operas Novels set in Tuscany Speculative fiction novellas Venus (mythology) Works by Joseph von Eichendorff