Orbis Litterarum 1990, 45, 71-83

Musical Analogies and Their Contexts in Bonaven- tura’s Nachtwachen Paul Davies, University of Dalhousie, Halifax, Nova Scoria. Canada

Musical analogies in Bonaventura’s Nachtwachen can be put into three separate categories. First of all, there are those which convey Man’s disharmony by describing the dissonant temperament of the night-watchman in musical terms. Then there are musical analogies that deal with street ballads, presenting love in a sceptical light and comparing the gypsy woman’s story of Kreuzgang’s birth with a ballad to cast doubt on the tale’s truthfulness, and to unmask the popular fictional convention of the day that the key to human personality lies in his or her demonic make-up. Finally, there are analogies between singers and poets. Such analogies aim to pillory the exaggerated behaviour of poets and singers, while one analogy, however, is meant to show the garret poet in a good light by comparing his voice to a higher art form, Mozart’s music. Bonaventura’s use of musical analogies resembles the way Jean Paul uses musical analogies. Their analogies encourage the reader to add musicality to his or her literary and sensory perceptions, but they differ in the way they indicate dissention and disunion in Bonaventura’s case, and harmony in Jean Paul’s. Bonaventura’s analogies demonstrate his tendency to think in musical terms. They musicalize the novel’s whole mood and language, and make the reader aware of music by describing the world within a musical frame of reference.

This article will undertake an examination of musical analogies in Bonaventu- ra’s novel Nachtwachen. Musical analogies, i.e. analogies of a musical nature in a literary text, are applied in eleven places in this work. For the purpose of this investigation they are divided into three roughly similar groups. The first group will deal with those passages in Bonaventura’s book where the temperament of the night-watchman Kreuzgang is described in musical terms by means of simile and metaphor. Group two contains analogies concerned with street ballads, and group three is comprised of analogies between music and poetry, specifically between poets and singers. Following this discussion, the possible influence of Jean Paul’s musical analogies upon the author of the Nachtwachen will be looked at.

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The first musical simile in group one gives us an insight into the nature of Kreuzgang’s character. The horrifying act of burying a nun alive in the tenth vigil of Bonaventura’s novel would normally have a profound effect upon an onlooker of poetically impressionable nature, but Kreuzgang claims that he was little affected at heart. He explains this assertion by comparing his nature to that of a string instrument tuned in an absurd way “auf dem daher niemals in einer reinen Tonart gespielt werden kann, wenn nicht anders der Teufel einmal ein Konzert darauf ankiindigt.”’ Norman Malcolm Brown sees in this sentence the aesthetic problem of the deliberately anti-sentimental writer whose soul is absurdly tuned. Brown maintains that the night-watch- man needs the devil’s help in bringing out a clear pure key, and without his help Kreuzgang would only produce dissonance. Yet Brown appears to have missed the irony inherent in this situation. Kreuzgang’s claim that the burial of the nun has little affected him is contradicted by the ensuing “Lauf durch die Skala” (92-93), which shows just how profoundly the night-watchman has been moved. Despite any help the devil may offer, the run through the musical scale still ends “in einer Disharmonie” (92). Dorothee Solle-Nipper- dey more correctly refers to the “ironische. Aufhebung und halbe Zuriick- nahme” of this ~imile .~

Further on, in vigil fourteen, Kreuzgang-Hamlet asks Ophelia in the poem “An die Liebe”:

Weib, wie kannst du nur Gefallen daran finden auf einem so kreischenden Instrumente, wie ich bin, spielen m wollen! Die Komposition ist fiir einen Fluch gesetzt, und ich muB ein Liebeshed dazu absingen. 0 laB mich fluchen und nicht in so schrecklichen Then schmachten! Hauche deine Seufzer in eine Flbte, aus mir schallen sie wie aus einer Knegstrompete, und ich riihre die Lirmtrommel, wenn ich girre. (1 15)

Kreuzgang’s character is again described in musical terms, i.e. he is a shrill instrument. Contrary to the meaning ascribed to the flute in this musical analogy, Kreuzgang is out of tune with the world and society. The metaphor of a shrieking instrument is an apt means of conveying this discord. In act three, scene two of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet compares himself to a pipe in a passage resembling the one just quoted from the Nachtwachen in so far as they both use the metaphor of Man the instrument who is played upon by others. In the appropriate passage from Shakespeare’s drama, the actors from the play-within-a-play have just re-entered with their recorders, and Hamlet says to Guildenstern:

Musical Analogies in Bonaventura ’s Nachtwachen 73

Why, look you now, how unworthy you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.

The same lack of harmony apparent in the poem “An die Liebe” is also present in the porter’s words in vigil ten. The gatekeeper who admits Kreuz- gang to view the cloister burial denies all human harmony, and calls Man “das Wesen . . . das durch das kiinstlich gewundene Sprachrohr melodische Tone von sich gibt indem es Aufruhr hineinruft” (90). Far from pointing to a musical harmony in Man, Bonaventura’s musical analogies indicate a certain disunion, discord, and dissonance. Some of the action in the Nachr- wachen is in any case accompanied by discordant music: there is the macabre gust of wind through the organ pipes (91) and the rhythmically wild dance sequences of the run through the scale, a “merkwiirdige Larvenrhapsodie,” in vigil ten, and the rattling chains of the madman and Ophelia’s disconnected ballads (122) in vigil fourteen. The use of musical analogies emphasizing disunion serves to reinforce an atmosphere of dissonance. The only exception to musical analogies which indicate discord is a short passage in the fifteenth vigil, where in order to get the job as night-watchman, Kreuzgang has to demonstrate among other things that he has an agreeable and cultivated diction not likely to insult the monarch’s “musikalischen Sinn” on sleepless nights (131). Kreuzgang is therefore capable of producing agreeable music if this is essential to his survival, but his basic mood remains nevertheless the sound of dissonance.

Musical analogies which are the subject of analysis in group two are concerned with street ballads. In vigil sixteen, the night-watchman’s brown gypsy mother recounts her son’s conception “im Bankelsangervortrage” (1 35).6 R. Russell Neuswanger considers this account to be “more a travesty of music and poetry than an appearance of the real things, if indeed it is that much,”’ thereby conceding the tale’s status as a ballad, a “Bankelsang” consisting of the combination and interplay of word, tone, and picture. Yet although singing takes place on other occasions in Bonaventura’s novel, notably Kreuzgang’s dirge (9) and Ophelia’s and Kreuzgang’s own ballads (122 and 61-62), the gypsy’s story is quite definitely called a speech - “Rede” (1 36). Thus it lacks those essential ingredients without which a ballad would

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not be a ballad, i.e. music and verse. Therefore “im Biinkelsiingervortrage” cannot be considered a description of the way the story is told, but as an analogy defining what kind of a story it is.

The content of the old gypsy woman’s speech is suitable for retelling in ballad-style. The account of the night-watchman’s conception (1 35-36) is given in a bold and vivid manner similar to the “Mordgeschichten” (61) which make up Kreuzgang’s own ballads (61-62), and would have made an excellently spooky ballad. Visual images such as the three charmed candles, the blue light, the Devil’s appearance, the chalked circle, and aural effects like the rippling of the earth as if it were surging, the loud and distinct reading from a book, and the strange laughter provide a ghostly, almost lurid impact. The whole account would have appealed to any ballad-singer’s audience with its love of the gruesome; tales of murder and crime, of robbers and of dreadful events dominated the thematic material of the “BHnkelsang,” and Kreuzgang relates that his audience had a strong liking for tales of blood, prefering “Schlachtstucke” (6 1).

Not only was a ballad traditionally sensational, it was also not necessarily true. A typical start to a “Bankelsang” is the assertion that the story to be told will be a true one, paradoxically a veiled hint that the story may in fact be anything other than authentic:

HBrt zu, ihr Jungen und ihr Alten, Die grausam grok Mordgeschicht, Die sich und noch vor wenig Tagen In Languedoc hat zugetragen, Und zweifelt an die Wahrheit nicht.*

So in likening the gypsy woman’s tale to a “Bankelsang,” its importance for the understanding of Kreuzgang is devalued and ultimately called into question. The text itself thereby exposes the story as a narrative mechanism by which the hero is given his obligatory demonic background - a device not even taken seriously by the night-watchman himself, who blurts out immediately after the narration that he has finally found the key to his whole being: “Es war ein gefahrlicher psychologischer Schliissel!” (136) The gypsy’s speech can be understood as a parody of the much-loved contemporary fictional convention that the key to a character’s personality lies in his demonic make-up. Such a convention is present, for example, in Ann Radclif- fe’s The Italian (1797)’ whose whole stock of motifs is derived from the German Schauerromuntik. The Dominican monk and father confessor Sche-

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doni is haunted by the shadows of a shady past, and in the course of the novel his criminal passions arising from his demonic nature are gradually exposed.

Apart from the musical analogy of a ballad-like nature, there is also one analogy using the “Gassenhauer” as its medium. In vigil nine, we are con- fronted with a catalogue of fools in a madhouse, and several inmates are grouped together as variations on the same “Gassenhauer,” love. A “Gas- senhauer” is a popular street-song originally intoned by night strollers, night- hawks, and night revellers. Its text was rather trivial, even at times coarse, with a lively, if often ordinary, melody. Such songs became universally known, but also tended to be ephemeral (a typical example of a “Gassenhauer” which is not ephemeral, but has stood the test of time, would be the Viennese “0 du lieber Augustin”). Whereas the text of a “Bankelsang” quite often has a moral message of contemporary relevance, if a moral is even present in a “Gassenhauer,” it is usually incidental. The term “Gassenhauer” was gener- ally used in a pejorative sense to mean a song popular among city-dwellers, and this pejorative meaning implies in the sentence “Nro. 12, 13, 14, 15 und 16 sind Variationen uber denselben Gassenhauer, die Liebe” (84) that love is held in somewhat low esteem. Such a low opinion of love fits in with the critical fight in which love is depicted elsewhere in Bonaventura’s novel. Experiences of love are in most cases accompanied by a rather disquieting ambiguity, for example Don Juan’s passionate love for Ines, which is mixed with dread (43) and which changed his character. The lover of vigil three play-acts love, thus degrading it to a mere sham while simultaneously trying to poeticize i t with his rhetorical bombast (18). The adulteress in vigil three is for her part incapable of true love, and like her lover can only reciprocate sensual pleasure. Kreuzgang’s love for Ophelia is full of reflections on “this mad feeling” called love as well as on the hate and anger within his soul (1 1 3).9 His poem “An die Liebe” starts by asking Ophelia why she clings to him, and continues “LaD mich los, beim Teufel! ich habe nichts mit dir zu schaffen!” (1 15) He concludes by writing that, had he known where she was leading him, he would have summoned all his strength and shaken her off (1 16).

With the possible exception of the love shown by the family of the free- thinker in vigil one, a love that leads to lasting fulfilment is not possible in the world depicted in the Nachtwachen, there is only sorrow, and a feeling of hopelessness. The musical analogy of love as a “Gassenhauer” in vigil

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nine reinforces the sceptical view of love presented in Bonaventura’s work. Analogies between music and poetry, above all between singers and poets,

is the theme of the third and final group. The first set of analogies deals with the night-watchman’s earlier career as a “Binkelsiinger.” As a result of his ballads about crimes committed by the church and state, fifty suits for slander are brought against Kreuzgang, and he appears before court as his own advocate (62). ’Tbming to his defence, which includes a certain twisting of words, he points out to the judges the injustices they themselves have commit- ted, injustices which make them unfit to pass sentence on accused criminals. The members of the court are utterly confused, their only solution being to declare him partially insane and send him to a madhouse (63-65).

There are two lines of argument taken by Kreuzgang which are of particu- lar interest here. First of all, he claims immunity as a singer, finding a reason to annul the complaint - “eine gesungene Injurie” (64) - in the argument that singers obviously belong to the order of poets, thereby establishing an analogy between singers and poets. As poets “nach der neuem Schule keine Tendenz bezwecken” (64), they should be allowed to slander and blaspheme in their inspiration all they like. Kreuzgang is here using society’s arguments against poets rather than his own - his own ballads were anything but lacking in purpose. His second line of argument is that a poet and singer cannot be accused of slander on the basis of his poetry or his songs, because the divinely inspired passion in which he creates is to be equated with inebrity, which excuses the offender as long as the drunken person has not put himself into that condition on purpose. Thisis another ironic jibe at poets who get camed away by their own enthusiasm; the word used by Kreuzgang is “Begeisterung” (64). In the third vigil, he thanks his good fortune for not having climbed too high onto the top of a pedestal intended for a statue of Justice so as to break his neck in falling down (23-24). By ‘climbing too high’ he not only means onto a roof, but he also refers to the ecstasy of poetic inspiration, the word “Begeisterung” (23) being used once more. In vigil six, Kreuzgang asserts in a play on words that such inspiration - “Begeisterung” - is induced by poets in themselves by the spirit of wine (54).

The purpose of these analogies between poets and singers is not to criticize music in the form of songs, but to criticize poets and poetry: singers are considered in these analogies to be virtually synonymous with poets, and poets are the object of some criticism in the Nuchtwachen, for example at the start of vigil eight, just before the garret poet’s “apotheosis.” Here, the

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night-watchman says that poets turn vicious and wicked when they try to hold up their ideals to reality, and start to attack the latter angrily (66). Kreuzgang’s own dislike of poetry becomes apparent in the fourteenth vigil, where he writes of the regrettable transformation of a real person into a poetic one ( 1 13). In contrast, “music turns out to be the standard by which poetry is judged and found wanting, the example of what the other art should be.” In fact, “music for the watchman is an ideal, whereas poetry is a god that failed.”” Music is “der erste suBe Laut vom fernen Jenseits, und die Muse des Gesanges ist die mystische Schwester, die zum Himmel zeigt” (9). One of the few consolations in the life of the blind boy in vigil eleven is music, which was the one genius to inspire him (95). The fact that there are so many musical analogies in the Nachtwachen demonstrates Bonaventura’s sympathy for this art form, and the ironic passing shots at poets in a number of these analogies also show us Bonaventura’s mistrust of poets and their art.

There are further analogies drawn between poets and singers in vigils twelve and sixteen. In the twelfth vigil, the night-watchman speaks in ironic tones of the wise arrangement of the state whereby its citizens are allowed to hunger periodically. In order to get a meal, philosophers build flimsy systems, judges judge, doctors heal, priests howl, workers hammer and pound, and poets warble like nightingales (10344). Here, poetry is indeed identified with singing, but the negative connotations of the term “schlagen” (which has been deliberately chosen in place of “singen”), and the sarcastic tone of the whole paragraph as well as of the “Apologie des Lebens” from which i t is taken indicate that the identification is to the detriment of poetry. In the final vigil, Kreuzgang addresses the corpse of his father, and speculates momentarily as to whether there really is an afterlife ascending above the demolished pantheon of the temporal world and reaching into the clouds (142). Amongst those with whom Kreuzgang would like to storm this possible heaven are singers (143). In a sense, poetry is once more identified with music, because these inspired singers are speaking in an enraptured style. But any temptation to see this identification in positive terms should be tempered: the term “begeistert” - “ihr begeisterten Sanger” (143) - is used again, a word already encountered in its meaning of an ecstatic, almost intoxicated form of inspiration. So poets/singers come off second best once more. It should also be pointed out that this imaginary new pantheon which he would like to take by storm with these singer poets turns out to be yet another

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empty illusion, as the corpse of Kreuzgang’s father crumbles into ashes at his touch, leaving only a handful of dust lying on the ground and a few worms. Gerald Gillespie correctly refers to “the birth and death trauma” of this last vigil as “the culmination of nihilistic despair.”” The “begeisterten SHnger” turn out in effect to be mere figments of Kreuzgang’s imagination, and the final “Nichts!” (143) to be an experience based upon the fact of human death.

The final musical analogy in our third group occurs in the eighth vigil. The night-watchman has discovered the corpse of the city poet in the latter’s garret room. The poet has hanged himself by the cord which had bound up the rejected manuscript of his own tragic drama Der Mensch. Kreuzgang says to the dead poet:

Arrner Teufel ... ich weiD nicht ob ich deine Himmelfahrt komisch oder ernsthaft nehmen soll! Drollig bleibt es allerdings, daD du als eine Mozartsche Stimme in ein schlechtes Dorfkonzert rnit eingelegt bist ... da nun deine Landsleute nur an ein abscheuliches kreischendes Geschrei statt des Gesanges gewijhnt sind, so muDten sie dich eben deines guten gebildeten Vortrages wegen zu den Nacht- wlchtern zlhlen, wie ich denn deshalb auch einer geworden bin. (68)

The night-watchman speaks in the poet’s favour in this vigil, and there is a temporary elevation of the poet’s accomplished elocution to the higher level of music. The analogy with a Mozartian voice in a bad village concert has the same purpose as the Mozart overture played by bad village musicians in the puppet play of vigil four (33). The playing of genuinely beautiful music - Mozart’s music 1 2 - by Man is impossible under the conditions created by Bonaventura within the world of the puppet play in particular and the world of the Nachtwachen in general: “Mozart’s music is something beautiful and great, but it has been hopelessly and inevitably ruined by Man’s attempt to reproduce and play it.”’3 The genius of music, above all the music of Mozart, is misunderstood by society as is the garret poet, although he is rejected not because of his tendency to strike theatrical poses (6 and 66-67), but because mankind in general in Bonaventura’s novel views all sorts of ideals, including ridiculous as well as honest ones, with suspicion. ‘So the garret poet is rejected for the wrong reasons, and it is for this reason that the night-watchman sympathizes with him in vigil eight, comparing his voice to the music of Mozart.

Having taken a look at the use of musical analogies in the Nachtwachen, we will now turn our attention to the question of whether Bonaventura used

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Jean Paul as a kind of model for his own musical ana10gies.l~ Music plays an important role in the novels of Jean Paul, Is normally representing and expressing feeling, in particular sensibility.

In Jean Paul’s very first novel Die unsichtbare Loge (1 793), musical ana- logies are employed to characterize people and situations. A young girl’s soul is described in the twelfth sector as “ein Nachtigallton unter Bliiten- iiberhang,” and in the seventeenth sector Jean Paul writes: “Ernenstinens Herz, Lippen und Ohren waren hinter den strengsten Gittern erzogen; daher wich ihre so melodische Seele (bei einem bloBen KuB) in eine fremde harte Tonart aus.’’16

Jean Paul’s employment of musical correspondences reaches its climax in Hesperus (1795). In the fifth chapter of part one, there is an ingenious description in the form of an extended metaphor of a musical arm-chair:

Nun war im Nebenzimmer ein rnusikalischer Amsessel, den man im Grunde mit nichts spielte als mit dern SteiB: sobald man sich hineinsetzte, ling er seine Ouverture an .... Der Ehegemahl ging endlich, wie ein Hering den Finalkadenzen nach und zog den mitten im Kontrapunkt und in Pralltrillern seBhaften Gewis- sensmann aus seinem Orgelstuhl und versalzte ihm den Wachtelruf, glaube ich, durch kommandierte Prugel.”

The next extract from Hesperus is a carefully composed analogy between an emotional make-up and music: “Sein zweiter Grund war sein zum Re- sonanzboden der Musik geschaffnes Herz, das gern die eilenden Tone ohne Storung aufsog.”” Our final example from Hesperus defines Man in terms of musical instruments and notes:

Der Mensch halt sich im Konzertsaal des Universums wenn nicht fur den Solospieler, doch fur ein Instrument darin - anstatt fur einen einzigen Ton .... Aber wir alle sind nur Tine, wie in Potemkins Orchester jede der sechzig metallenen Floten nur einen Ton angab.19

Jean Paul often avails himself of musical metaphors to intensify the mood of certain scenes and to create a specifically musical atmosphere. In his Titan (180o-O3), the effect of military marches is described as follows: “Und wenn er in jener Zeit _.. neben einem nach Pestitz gehenden Regimente ... metrisch mitzog, als die Trommeln und die Pfeifen Iarmten: so feierte seine Seele ein Handelsches Alexanderfest.”” In similar fashion, the action of Jean Paul’s fragmentary novel Flegeljahre (1804-05) is determined to a large extent by countless metaphors, such as: “Einige Menschen sind Klaviere, die nur einsam

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zu spielen sind, manche sind Flugel, die in ein Konzert geh6ren;” “Winas Dasein war eine sanfte Musik um ihn.”*’

Summarizing the use of numerous musical metaphors throughout Jean Paul’s novels, we can state that such metaphors and analogies permeate his language with a sense of musicality, heightening the emotional content of the passages concerned. The reader is thereby encouraged to add musicality to his or her literary and sensory perceptions. Johannes Mittenzwei has a similar view of Jean Paul’s use of musical analogies:

[Jean Paul] pflegt ... bei fast allen besonders gefiihlvollen Szenen oder emp- findungsstarken Erlebnissen seiner Gestalten sich musikalischer Vorgiinge, Hin- weise oder Metaphern m bedienen, als wolle er auf diese Weise den Stimmungs- gehalt jener betreffenden Stellen musikalisch untermalen beziehungsweise erhii- hen. Diese fur Jean Paul charakteristische Stileigenart ist derart haufig anzutreffen, daD ohne ubertreibung von einem musikalischen Kompositionsstil des Dichters gesprochen werden kann.”

Much the same can be said for the way musical analogies are used in the Nachtwachen, particularly in the first group we looked at. In contrast to the more harmonious musical analogies of Jean Paul, however, Bonaventura makes use of such analogies to increase the feeling of dissention and discord already present in much of his novel. Whereas Jean Paul’s musical analogies point to a harmony in Man (the notes of a flute quite often signify harmony in Jean Paul’s novels, for example), Bonaventura’s analogies usually indicate disunion and dissonance. So even though the author of the Nachtwachen may have modelled his musical analogies on those of Jean Paul (thereby providing more evidence for the influence of Jean Paul upon the Nachtwach- en), he differs from him in the way he infuses his similes and metaphors with discordant, not to mention ironic, tones.

Our discussion of musical analogies in the Nachtwachen attempted to demonstrate a specific use of musical correspondence. Group one was made up of similes and metaphors conveying the sense of disharmony within Man in musical terms. The analogies of group two dealt with street-songs and ballads: love was implicitly criticized by being compared to a “Gassenhauer,” and the story of Kreuzgang’s birth was likened to a “Bankelsang” in order to discredit the veracity of the gypsy’s tale, thus unmasking certain contem- porary fictional conventions. The third group of analogies all made compari- sons between poets and singers which were either ironical passing shots at the fanciful excesses of some poets, or an attempt to show the garret poet in

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a more sympathetic light by comparing him to a high art form, i.e. the music of Mozart.

Although most of the analogies we have analysed were employed in order to unmask particular situations and feelings, their musical aspect was admit- tedly not necessarily the determining element in a novel where the intention to expose weakness is everpre~ent .~~ Yet music is not devalued by this practice. Rather, the musical aspects of such analogies are evidence of Bonaventura’s tendency to think in terms of music. On the whole, the complete range of musical analogies in the Nachtwachen serves to musicalize the novel’s lan- guage and mood, and makes the reader aware of music by describing the world within a musical frame of reference. Such musical analogies suggest that music and musical ideas play an important role in Bonaventura’s Nach- twuchen.

NOTES 1 . Bonaventura, Nachtwachen. Im Anhang: Des Teufels Taschenbuch, ed. Wolfgang

Paulsen (1964; Stuttgart: Reclam, 1980) 92. Page numbers within brackets in the text which follow quotations from the Nachtwachen will refer to this edition by Paulsen.

2. Norman Malcolm Brown, Critical Studies of Bonaventura’s “Nachtwachen”, diss., Stanford U, 1971, UMI 7211515, 77 and 78.

3. Dorothee Solle-Nipperdey, Untersuchungen zur Struktur der “Nachtwachen” von Bonaventura, Palaestra 230 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1959) 73.

4. The close correspondence in imagery between these two quotations intimate that the author of the Nachtwachen was familiar with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as indeed does another part of vigil fourteen, where Ophelia praises the wooden shoe and shell hat - “Hoizschuh und Muschelhut” (1 13) - of her beloved. Shakespeare’s Ophelia sings of her beloved’s “cockle hat and staff / And his sandal shoon” in act four, scene five of Hamlet. Musical imagery and the literary depiction of musical accompaniment form an integral part of this vigil.

5. Joachim Stachow, “Studien zu den Nachtwachen von Bonaventura n i t besonderer Beriicksichtigung des Marionettenproblems,” diss., U Hamburg, 1957, 30.

6. Gerald Gillespie’s translation “in the manner of a street minstrel” is inaccurate, as a ‘street minstrel’ is in German “ein Spielmann.” See Gillespie, ed., Die Nachtwa- chen. The Night Watches of Bonaventura, Edinburgh Bilingual Library 6 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971) 235.

7. R. Russell Neuswanger, Investigation of Some Central Motvs in “Die Nachtwachen des Bonaventura,” diss., Ohio State U, 1970, UMI 7118061, 244.

8. Quoted by Walter Hinck, “Volksballade - Kunstballade - Bankelsang,” Balladen- forschung, ed. Walter Miiller-Seidel, Neue wissenschaftliche Bibliothek 108 (Meisenheim: Athenaum, 1980) 64.

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9. One passage which appears to elevate hate above love is the following one: “Es

10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

15.

ist g & k r die Welt zu-hapen, als sie zu lieben; wer liebt begehrt, wer haDt, ist sich selbst genug, und bedarf nichts weiter als seinen Hal3 in der Brust und keinen dritten!” (136-37). It is true that the night-watchman calls this speech by the gypsy woman an oracle, admitting that by it he recognized that she belonged to his family (see 137). However, our investigation of the gypsy woman’s account of Kreuzgang’s birth demonstrated that Kreuzgang’s reactions to her utterances are of dubious validity, as indeed are the gypsy’s own remarks. The passage quoted above can therefore not be taken at face value, and we cannot conclude from it that hate should take the place of love as some sort of absolute positive value. Neuswanger 19 1. Gillespie 6. Mozart is the composer who stands for excellent music per se in the Nuchtwuchen. Neuswanger claims quite rightly that Mozart’s name is used sparingly in Bonaven- tura’s work for a particular reason. Because Mozart is in fact the only composer mentioned by name in the whole of the novel, he becomes synonymous with great music: “For if Mozart is indeed synonymous with music, and especially with music as an ideal, then it is natural that he should seem inaccessible to Man in this book” (Neuswanger 255). Neuswanger 210. Hermann Michel was the first critic to correctly realize that Bonaventura probably wrote the Nuchtwuchen under the influence of Jean Paul. Michel sees examples of Jean Paul’s influence in the lyrically coloured rhapsodies, the descriptions of nature, the prominence given to Mozart (especially to Don Juan), and the use of statues, ravens, and blind figures. Max RouchC even goes as far as to suggest that Jean Paul could have written the Nuchtwuchen himself, a conclusion Rouche regards as more credible when the stylistic similarities common to Bonaventura and Jean Paul are taken into consideration. Andreas Mielke’s dissertation Zeit- genosse Bonaventuru concludes that the numerous references and allusions in the Nachtwuchen hinting at Jean Paul prove that he is Bonaventura’s spiritual mentor: whoever wrote this work, Jean Paul is responsible for the fact that they were written at all. In a later article, Mielke made a detailed comparison between the Nachtwuchen and the writings of Jean Paul, particularly Des Lufischi/fers Giunnoz- zo Seebuch, in which a linguistic and philosophical kinship between both authors was revealed. See Hermann Michel, ed., Nachtwuchen von Bonaventuru, vol. 133 of Deutsche Literuturdenkmale &s 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Behrs, 1904) xx-xxii; Max Rouche, “Bonaventura ne serait-il pas Jean Paul Richter lui-mcme?” Etudes Germaniques 24 (1969): 329-45; Andreas Mielke, Zeitgenosse Bonaventura, diss., Yale U, 1981, UMI 8210398 (published as a book four years later with the title Zeitgenosse Bonaventura, Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik 132 (Stuttgart: Heinz, 1984)); Mielke, “Bonaventura’s Nachtwuchen als ‘treffliche Nachahmung’ Richters,” ZfdPh. 104 (1 985): 520-42. See, for example, Johannes Mittenzwei, Das Musikulirche in der Literutur: Ein oberblick von Gottfried von Strajburg bir Brecht (Halle: Sprache und Literatur, 1962) 91-106; Wilhelm Schreiber, “Jean Paul und die Musik,” diss., U Leipzig, 1928; and Traute Maass Marshall, “Der ‘musikalische Stil’ bei Jean Paul,“ diss., U of Chicago, 1974.

Musical Analogies in Bonavenfura ‘s Nachtwachen 83

16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Jean Paul, Werke, ed. Norbert Miller, 6 vols. (Munchen: Winkler, 1961-65) 1: 106 and 144. Jean Paul, Werke 1: 552. Jean Paul, Werke 1: 773. Jean Paul, Werke 1: 109697. Jean Paul, Werke 3: 106. Jean Paul, Werke 2: 808 and 1015. Mittenzwei 93. Kreuzgang’s main concern is to pull off the masks worn by mankind and to bring to light whatever lies underneath these masks. See Richard Brinkmann, “Nachtwachen von Bonaventura.” Kehrseife der Friihr;omantik? Opuscula aus Wis- senschaft und Dichtung 31 (Pfullingen: Neske, 1966) 22.

Paul Davies. Born 1957. Ph.D. (Queen’s University, Canada). Adjunct Assistant Pro- fessor of German at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Has pub- lished articles on Georg Kaiser, Heinrich von Kleist and others.