Emilia Galotti: Ein Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Abstract

MLR, 10I.2, 2006 57I Emilia Galotti: Ein Trauerspiel in finf Aufzuigen. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. By GOTTHOLDEPHRAIMLESSING. Ed. by ELKEMONIKA BAUER. Tiibingen: Nieme yer. 2004. xxvi+897pp. Ei88. ISBN 3-484-i0848-7. With thismonumental volume, the growth of commentaries on classic texts of German literature continues exponentially. The seventy-five pages of Emilia Galotti are here accompanied by over eight hundred pages of editorial apparatus, including a long introduction and by far the largest collection of materials yet assembled on thework's genesis, successive editions, performances, and reception down to Lessing's death in 178i, followed by multiple indexes and inventories of sources. The line-by-line commentary on the text is, on the other hand, comparatively short, for it lists only the variants in survivingmanuscripts and early editions; the only interpretative comments are those of Lessing's contemporaries in the collection of historical documents. The need for a new historical and critical edition of Emilia Galotti is unquestion able, for that in the standard edition of Lessing's works (Sdmtliche Schriften, ed. by Karl Lachmann, 3rd edn by Franz Muncker, 23 vols (Stuttgart, Leipzig, and Berlin: Goschen, I886-I 924)) is based on the third impression by Lessing's publisher, dated I772 but perhaps of later origin, inwhich Lessing probably had no hand. Besides, neither Muncker's nor any subsequent edition takes adequate account of the printer's manuscript of the first edition, discovered inAmerica in I948, with corrections by Lessing, his brother, and an unidentified compositor. Elke Monika Bauer bases her text on the first edition, correcting various misprints, errors, and omissions; she suc ceeds admirably in unravelling the complex history of the surviving manuscripts and the numerous authorized and pirated editions of the text published in Lessing's life time. Since the textual variants are predominantly minor, this major editorial effort is unlikely to change our vision of the play substantially. Besides, asBauer herself admits, the choice of variant readings is often debatable: it is rarely possible, for example, to determine whether Lessing tacitly approved or simply failed to notice textual changes introduced by others. Nevertheless, this new edition is likely to remain the definitive version of the text-at least for scholarly purposes-for the foreseeable future, and the editor is to be congratulated on her impressive achievement. For many readers, themost useful part of the volume will be the extensive collec tion, nearly three hundred pages in length, of mainly unfamiliar documents on the early reception of the play in print and in performance. Particularly striking is the fact that most of the principal arguments, both critical and apologetic, of modern commentators merely repeat those of Lessing's contemporaries-on the consistency of the heroine's character, the reality of her supposed weakness, the necessity of her death, the naturalness or artificiality of the dialogue, the play's political significance, its compatibility with the Hamburgische Dramaturgie and with definitions of domes tic tragedy, and so on. Students of theatre history will also find more records here of early performances than inUrsula Schulz's hitherto authoritative Lessing auf der Buihne: Chronik der Theaterauffiihrungen I748-I789 (Bremen andWolfenbiittel: Ja cobi, I977). The deficiencies of this work are the obverse of its strengths. Its very thorough ness- ven the textual variants in reprints of early reviews are catalogued, and the editor's long introduction duplicates much of thematerial included inother sections generates inflation, and the law of diminishing returns sets in: the sheer length of the work, with its large pages and small print, will render its most valuable elements difficult of access to all but the most assiduous readers. SIDNEY SUSSEXCOLLEGE,CAMBRIDGE H. B. NISBET ...