Text and Image: Representation in Grimmelshausen's Continuatio

Abstract

The ten-year old Simplicissimus wasby his own admissionso und vollkommen in der Unwissenheit / da8 mir unmiiglich war zu wissen / daB ich so gar nichts wuste (12:8) and it fell to the Einsiedler to educate the boy. By the ninth chapter Simplicius has been transformed einer Bestia zu einem Christenmenschen (6:2 f.), from a condition of instinctual existence to one founded on belief; in the tenth chapter he is confronted for the first time by a Biblical image: Ich gab Achtung auff das Buch / und nachdem er [der Einsiedler] solches beygelegt / machte ich mich darhinder / schlugs auff / und bekam im ersten Griff das erste Kapitel deB Hiobs / und die davor stehende Figur / so ein feiner Holzschnitt... in die (30:20 ff.). That the Job woodcut illustration is of special significance to the boy who had only recently escaped the terrible conflagration of his home and the loss of his kin goes without saying, for the early modern illustrations typically focus on the details of drastic destruction attending Job's tribulation (Biblia 916; Job 1: 13-19). So meaningful is the graphic to Simplicius (who had just observed the hermit reading to himself) that he initiates a conversation with the printed page. When it refuses to reply, Simplicius dashes off to fill a bucket with water in order to extinguish the fire depicted by the print. The hermit prevents the boy from dousing the book, explaining Bilder leben nicht / sie seynd nur gemacht / uns vorlingst geschehene Dinge vor Augen zu stellen (31:7 ff.). Simplicius remains confused: [D]u hast ja erst mit ihnen geredt / warumb wolten sie dann nicht leben? (31:9 f.); his question elicits the Einsiedler's patient reply: Liebes Kind / diese Bilder k6nnen nicht reden / was aber ihr Thun und Wesen sey / kan ich auf3 diesen schwartzen Linien sehen / welches man lesen nennet (31:12 f.). By the end of the chapter Simplicius is instructed in reading and writing, the single most important step away from his erstwhile state of perfect ignorance toward a consummate ability as his own biographer. What is of interest in the novel's brief episode is that the actual author of the protagonist's autobiography, Grimmelshausen, presents this most crucial event in Simplicius's education through reference to the interaction between word and picture, between verbal and visual signs. The graphic lines of the image speak to Simplicius to the extent that they reflect his historical condition as a latterday Job, yet they remain truly insignificant until augmented by words. As powerful an effect as the image may exert, its implications are likely to be misapprehended unless accompanied by words. For Grimmelshausen the literary representation of reality asserts a certain primacy over its graphic depiction, while it does not cancel out the cognitive enrichment imparted to the literary text by reference to pertinent visual images. Indeed, it is a common tactic of Grimmelshausen to describe a person or locale in some detail, only to conclude with an explicit reference to iconography; the reader is often asked to draw on some innate familiarity with iconographic images in order to supplement descriptive literary statement. An acute sensitivity to the symbiotic relationship between text and image