Fictions of Freemasonry: Freemasonry and the German Novel (review)

Abstract

Goethe Yearbook 283 Koepke weaves an admirably tight web of biographical data, adroitly linking it to major literary, social and political currents of the age. His remarks on interpretations of the tale will be useful to those approaching the work for the first time. He reviews major critical approaches to the text from the late nineteenth century to the present, balancing the pros and cons of the various interpretations. Rather than privileging any particular point of view, he provides the reader with tantalizing, provocative possibilities, what he aptly calls "teasers" (xxviii). This edition has many merits, but one wishes that the introduction had been given a more attentive final proofreading. Several instances of editorial oversight detract from the readability of the text. The last three lines of p. ν are repeated on p. vi, and on p. xi a complete sentence is sandwiched between two sentence fragments which, when they are linked, appear to yield a complete thought. Though hardly crucial, such deviations as "an lonely man" (xiii-xiv) tend to be distracting. The Camden House Peter Schlemihl is a handsome hardcover edition whose visual appeal is heightened by its reproduction of the eight droll and sprightly engravings by Peter Cruikshank which were included in Bowring's 1861 edition. Macalester College David Sanford Abbott, Scott, Fictions of Freemasonry: Freemasonry and the German Novel. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. While Freemasonry traced its origins to various ancient sources, the builders of the temple of Solomon, the creators of the Egyptian pyramids, even the Rosicrucians, the first Grand Lodge was founded in London in 1717. Dedicated to the principles of the Enlightenment, and aspiring to the goals of harmony and friendship in a sort of sectarian religion, it opened its doors to aristocrats, intellectuals, businessmen, and even prominent tradesmen . The lists of this and other lodges throughout the eighteenth century represent a sort of "who's who" of the Enlightenment, including such figures as Wren, Pope, Hogarth, Boswell, and Burns in Britain; Franklin, Washington, and Revere in America; Lafayette, Voltaire, and Montesquieu in France; and Klopstock, Kotzebue, Haydn, Mozart, Lessing, Goethe, and even Frederick the Great in the German-speaking countries. Because Freemasonry expressed the ideals of the Enlightenment through the use of elaborate symbols and rituals, it developed a dual identity and character. On the one hand it claimed to be non-political, but played a profound role in encouraging the transformation of authoritarian governments to democratic principles in the American, French, Italian, and German revolutions. On the other hand, it saw itself as nonsectarian, a demystifying and desacralizing religion of man, but its concern for ritual and symbol spawned a romantic fascination with mysticism and esoteric knowl- 284 Book Reviews edge. In turn, because of its egalitarian principles which allowed men of different classes and social strata to mingle on an equal footing, its secretiveness , and its conception of itself as a sectarian religion in opposition to the established institutions, many authorities looked suspiciously on the Freemasons as subversive and even revolutionary. These concerns led them either to suppress the lodges, or to encourage the foundation of various alternative secret societies as a sort of counterweight. This complex mix of dual identities, secret societies, international conspiracies , and mystical symbols has provided a rich and fertile supply of material for writers and artists over the last two centuries. Among the German -speaking peoples, the Geheimbundroman held a special fascination. In a lucid and illuminating study, Scott Abbott traces the dual identity of Freemasonry in the German league novel. Writing not a history of Freemasonry or masonic imagery in German literature per se, Abbott argues that an awareness of the concern for the dual nature of Freemasonry, political /nonpolitical as well as secularizing/mystical, helps us to trace a thematic continuity among a number of novels. Focusing primarily on Schiller's Der Geisterseher (1787-1789), Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1829), Gutzkow's Die Ritter vom Geiste (1850/51), Hofmannsthal's Andreas oder Die Vereinigten (1930), Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg (1924), and Günther Grass's Die Blechtrommel (1959) and Hundejahre (1963), Abbott offers a series of cogent and suggestive readings. Despite its Enlightenment principles, Schiller always remained suspicious of Freemasonry...