Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz: Vom Sturm und Drang zur Moderne by Andreas Meier (review)

Abstract

1036 Reviews frequently pinpointed in Krump's footnotes to the text, are discussed in satisfying detail. Two other dramas, Deodatus (1713) and Parmenio (1763), are given equally spacious treatment, and are complemented by programme summaries of eight other plays in facsimile with contemporary or modern translations. Latin drama in Passau had its ups and downs; curiously enough, no plays were staged there during the years of Cromwell's Commonwealth or of the reign of James II, though not even Krump seems to know why this was. The plays them? selves were often of mediocre standard, but in 1665-66 the Passau College had the good fortune to have Avancini as its rector. This brief period proved to be its golden age, but, wisely perhaps, Krump disappoints her readers by withholding the texts of the two plays he wrote while there, in hopes of a complete edition of Avancini's works. Significantly, Heyrenbach's Parmenio, the play which finallybought the curtain down on Passau's long tradition of Jesuit drama in 1764 (ten years before the suppression of the Society of Jesus), shows telling affinitiesnot only with Seneca's Oedipus but with Lessing's Philotas and Schlegel's Canut as well. The central figure is none other than Hermann the Cheruscan. He had already figured in a number of German and Jesuit dramas, but here the action focuses on the theme of fraternal enmity which was soon to become an integral element of Sturm und Drang., Its author remains unknown de? spite all Sandra Krump's efforts,and his drama survives only in a German-language summary, but that is enough to capture the attention. University of Bristol Peter Skrine Jakob Michael ReinholdLenz: Vom Sturm und Drang zur Moderne. Ed. by Andreas Meier. (Beihefte zum Euphorion, 41) Heidelberg: Winter. 2001. 145 pp. ?21. ISBN 3-8253-1238-0(pbk). Following his infamous 'Eseley' and just before his ensuing expulsion from Weimar, Lenz wrote to Herder at the end of November 1776 lamenting his sudden fall from grace: 'Freilich traurig genug, kaum gesehen und gesprochen, ausgestoBen aus dem Himmel als ein Landlaufer, Rebell, Pasquillant [. . .] Hatt ich nur Goethens Winke eher verstanden. Sag ihm das.' The long shadow that then fell over Lenz and his subsequent reception was to a great extent one of Goethe's making. Meier's vol? ume of seven essays and a delightfully eclectic anthology of twenty-one 'lyrische Lenzportrats' from the 1770s to the 1990s is the result of the 1999 conference 'Im Schatten Goethes ? Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz'. As Meier states in his intro? ductory remarks, Lenz, like Buchner, is an author whose works have fallen prey to 'eine verspatete Rezeption', indeed to such a point that 'Erst dem 20. Jahrhundert wird ihr Werk zum literarischen Begriff,erst die von ihnen mit vorbereitete Moderne schafftihnen die geeignete Lektiirevoraussetzung' (p. 7). Through its contributors' differingapproaches, which present snapshots taken over a two-hundred-year period, the volume offers a rich and stimulating variety of perspectives. A number of gaps and missing links in Lenz scholarship are revealed, and Lenz is also shown to be an unwitting pawn in a number of subsequent aesthetic debates. Given the volume's aims, Riidiger Zymner's opening article rather goes against the grain, as it deals with Lenz's own reception of Shakespeare. In a well-argued and illustrated piece he reveals how Lenz 'entdeckt und entwickelt [. . .] eine Asthetik der Kunst', one which is termed a 'moderne Asthetik' (p. 21). In an area of Lenz studies yet to be convincingly explored, as so often when it comes to Anglo-German literary relations, this piece presents an intriguing standpoint. Despite the recent resurgent interest in Lenz, the frustration at the lack of a critical edition has become a familiar refrain at the increasing number of Lenz conferences, yet one that seems unlikely MLRy 98.4, 2003 1037 to be acted on, despite the possibilities opened up by new methods of digital pro? duction. One consequence of this state of affairs is the steady trickle of rediscovered letters and texts, not necessarily in manuscript form, but simply printed and held in foreign libraries. This is the case in Jorg-Ulrich Fechner's presentation of...