Schumann’s Genoveva as German Romantic Drama

Abstract

With the exception, perhaps, of a few works of Hebbel and Kleist, the Romantic movement in Germany produced little for the dramatic stage. From the time of Goethe and Schiller, prior to the development of Romanticism, to the later works of Wagner there are few significant excursions into the field of the drama. One of the reasons, perhaps, why German Romantic stage productions exhibited relatively little growth was that the philosophical and aesthetic ideals of German Romanticism were difficult to express solely in terms of the drama: the delight in musical effects, fantasy, mysticism, and moods; the desire to express longing and the unconscious; and the doctrine of Synaesthesia. These are goals which are not easily achieved in the traditional form of the drama. Many German Romantic literary figures such as Wackenroder, Jean Paul, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Morike, and the Schlegels prophesied that the spirit of German Romanticism would only be fully expressed by artists equally gifted in music and poetry. Morike, for example, in his poem, Der junge Dichter, described music as the poet's second soul. Schumann along with Hoffmann and Wagner fulfilled this prophecy. Robert Schumann's formative years were devoted primarily to literary endeavors. His father, a bookseller, founder of a publishing house, writer, and translator of Shakespeare into German, profoundly influenced young Schumann's great love of literature. By the time he was thirteen he had contributed articles to his father's publications, had written large anthologies of poetry and a five-act tragedy, and had translated many Latin works into German. Before he turned seriously to music, Schumann made several further excursions into the field of the novel and the drama (Coriolan, Leonhard und Mantellier, etc.). Even