WESTPHäLISCHE SCHILDERUNGEN AUS EINER WESTPHäLISCHEN FEDER AND BEI UNS ZU LANDE AUF DEM LANDE

“Es ist kein Roman, es ist unser Land”

(5, 1: 130)

Die Judenbuche was Droste's last prose work to be marked by a fluctuating narrative perspective and shifting narrative stance. Droste's other prose writings—Westphälische Schilderungen aus einer westphälischen Feder,¹ Droste's contribution to the genre of Reisebilder or, to use Sengle's term, Reisebeschreibung;²Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande, a fictionalized diary with distinctly autobiographical content;³ and Joseph, an unfinished Kriminalgeschichte—give evidence of Droste's continued experimentation with narrative form and perspective and indicate her ultimate resolution of the shifting perspectives which so effectively contribute to the ambiguities that characterize Die Judenbuche.

Droste began writing about Westphalia in late 1838, attributing the impetus to Amalie Hassenpflug: “Die vielfachen, ich möchte fast sagen ungestümen, Bitten Malchen Hassenpflugs haben mich bestimmt, den Zustand unseres Vaterlandes, wie ich ihn noch in frühster Jugend gekannt, und die Sitten und Eigenthümlichkeiten seiner Bewohner zum Stoff meiner nächsten Arbeit zu wählen. …” She confesses to remaining uncertain as to the form, mentioning as a possibility that of Washington Irving's Bracebridge Hall, which she describes as “eine Reihenfolge von kleinen Begebenheiten und eignen Meditationen, die durch einen losen leichten Faden, etwa einen Sommeraufenthalt auf dem Lande, verbunden sind.” Though she finds this form “ansprechend,” because it gives “dem Schreibenden große Freiheit, bald erzählend, bald rein beobachtend und denken aufzutreten,” she expresses concern that this form, which Victor Joseph de Jouy followed in several works, might have been overused and counters with another possibility: “eine Reihe kleiner in sich geschlossener Erzählungen … die keinen andern Zusammenhang haben, als daß sie alle in Westphalen spielen, und darauf berechnet sind, Sitten, Charakter, Volksglauben, und jetzt verloren gegangene Zustände desselben zu schildern.” Such an alternative, she writes, is “schwieriger, bedarf weit reicherer Erfindung, und schließt alle Meditationen und Selbstbeobachtungen fast gänzlich aus,” yet it is also “weniger verbraucht, läßt höchst poetische und seltsame Stoffe zu … und hat den großen Vortheil in keinem Falle zu beleidigen …” (8, 1: 329, 330).

A month later in a letter to her sister, Droste again mentions her interest in writing “ein Art Buch wie Braçebridge-Hall,” focusing on “Westphalen mit seinen Klöstern, Stiftern, und alten Sitten,” as well as her concern that such a project would evoke the ire of her Landsleute. “Meine lieben Landsleute steinigen mich, wenn ich sie nicht zu lauter Engeln mache,” she writes, noting that they tended to take everything personally. If, however, she were to write a series of tales set in Westphalia, Droste suggests, “wird Keiner (wie hier die Leute mahl etwas schweren Begriffs sind) es auf sich beziehn, sondern nur auf die Personen der Erzählung.” Furthermore, this format, she notes, would allow her to move “von dem gewöhnlichen Gange der Dinge” to relate “Vorgeschichten und dergleichen, mit einem Tone der Wahrheit” rather than refer to them merely as “Volksglauben.” Yet in this discussion, as well, Droste returns to the first option—“die Form von Braçebridge”—calling it “bey Weiten die Angenehmste, sowohl zum Lesen als zum Schreiben, weil sie so mannigfaltig ist, und auch eigne Beobachtungen und Meditationen, kleine lächerliche Vorfälle, et cet zuläst. …” It was a mode Droste wrote, “was sehr amusirt, man öfter lesen kann, und auch mehr eignen Geist voraus setzt, als Erzählungen, die … doch selten Jemand zwey mahl liest …” (9, 1: 22-23).

In March 1841, Droste's plan was more definitive, and she wrote Schlüter of her decision, “ein ellenlanges Buch im Gechmacke von Bracebridge-Hall, auf Westphalen angewendet, zu schreiben,” in which “auch die bewußte Erzählung von dem erschlagenen Juden hinein kömmt.” She indicated that “der Aufenthalt eines Edelmanns aus der Lausitz bey einem Lehnsvetter im Münsterlande” would serve as the unifying factor for the work's three sections—the first, which she called the “stärkste Abtheilung” would be his visit there; the subsequent sections would focus on a visit with this family to relatives in the Paderborn region and then their return through the Sauerland with time spent with other families. This structure would enable her to present “alle normale Characktere, Sitten, Institute (z. b. Damenstifter, Klöster), Sagen und Aberglauben dieser Gegenden … theils gradezu in die Scene gebracht, theils in den häufig eingestreuten Erzählungen” (9, 1: 214-15). The repeated references to the Westphalian project found in her correspondence reveal not only her concerns regarding the most appropriate form but also the intertwined nature of the works it generated. Her plan to publish a single work with such scope, however, did not materialize.

After Die Judenbuche appeared in the Morgenblatt as an independent work in 1842, Droste continued with her Westphalian project. The three sections focusing on the regions of Münsterland, Paderborn, and Sauerland respectively—which characterized the project she referred to as “Bey Uns zu Lande auf dem Lande” in a 1841 letter (9, 1: 250) and which she had sent to Schücking in July 1842—were published as Westphälische Schilderungen in 1845. The “Aufenthalt eines Edelmanns aus der Lausitz bey einem Lehnsvetter im Münsterlande,” which she outlined earlier, remained a fragment; it was published posthumously in 1886 and bears the title once envisioned for the entire project.⁴

The two Westphalian works and the Joseph-project, begun 1844 and published posthumously in 1886, present the last stage of Droste's experimentation with prose narration. In these works Droste's narrative style is both formalized and regularized. Rather than attempting to synthesize or interweave the variant narrative stances, she institutes and maintains a clearly defined perspective that avoids both the potential for incongruities and the tendency toward obscurity which had earlier marked her prose. The phrase “aus einer westphälischen Feder” included in the title of Westphälische Schilderungen signals the narrative perspective used in the work and its unified form: the observatory perspective is maintained throughout, no shifts to a participatory stance occur. In the two unfinished works Bei uns zu Lande and Joseph, Droste utilizes dual narrators—one, associated with the frame, to whom a distanced, editorial role is assigned; and one to whom the internal text is attributed. As a result, the objective, chronicle-like aspect, evidenced in random remarks in Ledwina and constituting one part of the shifting narrative stance in Die Judenbuche, becomes the dominant style, and the use of fictive narrators, figures who are external to the events of the internal story, provides a unifying narrative perspective. These late prose works are thus characterized by a consistent narrative stance; absent is the protagonist-observer duality that marks her previous writings, together with the direct participatory quality they frequently display. Gone as well are the spontaneity of direct expression stemming from the participatory stance and the sense of immediacy, achieved in earlier works through on-site depiction of the situation, identification with a protagonist, or the direct response of the narrative voice—features arising from apparent narrator involvement through projection into the action or scene depicted. These later works thus both testify to Droste's ability to execute works with a consistent narrative perspective and reveal the impact of the new restrictiveness on the vitality of her prose.

When in April 1842 Levin Schücking sought a contribution from Droste for a volume, Das malerische und romantische Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert to be edited by Ludwig Amandus Bauer, Droste assented readily. She turned to the Westphalian material that she had been working on and already in June 1842 wrote to Schücking that she had finished the contribution, which needed only copying (9, 1: 320). Several weeks later, she sent him the material, emphasizing that she had not “wie du mir riethest ‘hübsch zusammen gedichtet’ was mir doch für ein geschichtliches Werk zu gewagt schien”—but had instead held herself “streng an Thatsachen” (9, 1: 321).⁵ When the planned anthology did not materialize, Droste seemed relieved—“Das Schicksal des ‘19ten Jahrhunderts’ ist schwer zu beklagen,” she wrote Schücking—and was adamant that Schücking not publish the text elsewhere, claiming it was “zu scharf.” As rationale Droste drew a sharp contrast between publishing in an important historical work—“was strenge Wahrheit bedingt, nur von ernsten Männern gelesen wird, obendrein wahrscheinlich nie nach Westphalen gekommen wäre”—and “Journale, wo alle Laffen und Weiber drüber kommen,” a disparaging reference that indicates the low opinion Droste held of such Journale and their readers, who were more interested in the sensational than the factual. Droste was convinced that her work would be perceived as “tacktlose Impertinenz” and believed that the repercussions would be serious for Schücking, as well as for her, even if the contribution were to appear anonymously. Elaborating upon the consequences she anticipated and the reasons for her concern, Droste wrote that the publication would “unser Beyder hiesige Stellung gänzlich verderben, und mir wenigstens tausend Feinde und Verdruß zuziehn … da, selbst wenn Sie den Sündenbock machen wollten, meine Mitwirkung hier zu Lande gar nicht bezweifelt werden könnte, der vielen Anekdoten wegen, die grade nur mir und den Meinigen passirt sind. …” Here, too, the distinctions between the two types of publications play a role: “Unverschuldeter Verdruß ließ sich noch allenfalls tragen,” she continued, “aber hier würde er uns mit Recht treffen, denn wer giebt uns die Erlaubniß, Leute die uns nie beleidigt haben in ihrem eignen Lande zu höhnen, außer etwa unter der Aegide eines tiefernsten wissenschaftlichen Zweckes” (10, 1: 13; emphasis mine).

Perhaps because Droste recognized Schücking's entrepreneurial nature and his interest in advancing his career in the publishing world, she reiterated, two months later, her request that he “inhibit” the publication of the work (10, 1: 38). However, Droste was apparently determined that it should appear, and in a place appropriate for its historical nature, and in the summer of 1844, she submitted the material—“gegen das förmliche Versprechen strengster Verschwiegenheit betreffs der Urheberschaft”—to Guido Görres for his Historisch-Politische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland. There the work appeared anonymously in three installments in 1845, and, as Droste had predicted, its appearance provoked considerable controversy. Wilhelm Kreiten recalls a conversation with the publishers, Görres and G. Phillips, in which they described the severe reactions to its publication they in fact encountered, as well as Droste's warning.⁶ Ironically, neither Droste's mother nor her sister read the work during Droste's lifetime, and when Jenny von Laßberg read the work years later, she confessed: “Es gereut mich, daß ich ihn nicht eher gelesen, es wäre der armen Nette gewiß ein Trost gewesen, wenn ich ihr gesagt, daß ich nichts Tadelnswerthes darin finde” (5, 2: 511). She cited in particular the positive description of the Münsterland region, noting:

Ich begreife nicht, wie er solchen Spektakel erregen konnte, besonders im Münsterlande, das ja wunderschön, fast mit zu großer Vorliebe geschildert ist. … Was sie von Paderborn sagt, ist wohl scharf, aber nicht unwahr, und lange nicht so arg, als ich erwartete; dabei sagt sie ja über den Adel und die höheren Klassen eigentlich nichts ausdrücklich.

(5, 2: 511-12)

The work also met critical acclaim: a pre-publication notice of Droste's Letzte Gaben that appeared in Europa in 1859 referred to Westphälische Schilderungen as “die ‘meisterhaften Skizzen’ über Westfalen” but made no mention of Die Judenbuche (5, 2: 212).

In Westphälische Schilderungen⁷ Droste describes her homeland, discussing in turn the three distinct areas of Westphalia: the Sauerland, Münsterland, and Paderborn regions. In each section she presents the countryside, its natural features, including terrain and vegetation, and its inhabitants, their behavior, lifestyles, and customs, as they might appear to an informed, but uninvolved observer, the “westphälische Feder” already noted. Although the authorial “we” occurs already in the opening sentence—“Wenn wir von Westphalen reden, so begreifen wir darunter einen großen, sehr verschiedenen Landstrich”—and the communal “we” is occasionally reduced to a more specific first-person singular—“ich meine das des gleichen (katholischen) Religionscultus, und des gleichen früheren Lebens unter den Krummstäben …” (5, 1: 45)—the authorial presence remains unspecified and the narrative mode is non-participatory in nature. The observations of people and places are presented as those of a single traveler, who reveals himself as one intimately familiar with the countryside and its inhabitants, identifies personally with the region and shares its heritage, and draws from personal experience and observation in his description of the landscape, the villages, the huts and cottages, and the people themselves.

Unlike other narrator figures in Droste's works, the fictive narrator in Westphälische Schilderungen is divested of specific, identified, or identifiable personal characteristics. However, although he does not refer to himself as a man, several incidents, which he presents as personally experienced, contain references to his masculine identity. With a bit of humor, for example, the narrator reports:

Auch auf dem Felde kannst Du im Gefühl der tiefsten Einsamkeit gelassen fortträumen, bis ein zufälliges Räuspern, oder das Schauben eines Pferdes Dir verräth, daß … Du mitten durch zwanzig Arbeiter geschritten bist, die sich weiter nicht wundern, daß der “nachdenkende Herr” ihr Hutabnehmen nicht beobachtet hat, da er, nach ihrer Meinung, “andächtig ist”. …

(5, 1: 67)

When Droste's manuscript was published anonymously in the Historischpolitische Blätter, this feature and the cultural assumptions of her day led readers to believe that the author was a man. Indeed, the first printed reaction postulated that the individual who authored the contribution was “ein Westphale—ohne Zweifel dem alten Adel angehörend” (5, 2: 520).

Reflecting Droste's intent to appear impartial and “wissenschaftlich,” incidents personally witnessed or experienced by the author-narrator, which are presented in the narrative, are extracted from the personal, participatory realm and presented in distilled form, separated from any individualized or personalized context. In their depiction these incidents and events are universalized to the experiences of any stranger, or any traveler, and even passages of dialogue are presented not as unique occurrences but as typical of those which any traveler might encounter. The second-person-singular form of address, which appears in the cited passage and which is used with greater frequency as the narration progresses, is similarly not personalized; it serves as a form of address to any, totally undifferentiated member of the reading public. It is, however, a sign of the self-consciousness of the narrative act and serves to underscore the conscious intent behind the text.

The tone of the travel journal is conversational, and when the narrator states: “Haben wir die paderbornsche Gränze … überschritten, so beginnt der hochromantische Theil Westphalens” (5, 1: 49), readers are to feel that they are being guided along a path, long familiar to their guide. In the third chapter, the tone becomes more familiar, more intimate, and the frequent use of the familiar, second-person-singular pronoun draws the reader directly into the experience. On one occasion, the narrator, though relating a typical, hypothetical incident, adds a qualifying comment in an aside to the reader: “d. h. wenn Du nicht mit Geld klimpertest …” (5, 1: 64). Throughout the text, the narrator appears conscientious in his concern that the reader learn both the context of the incidents being related and the intent behind their inclusion. After relating a tale of the supernatural, the narrator notes, for example: “Wir geben das eben Erzählte übrigens keineswegs als etwas Besonderes … sondern nur als ein kleines Genrebild aus dem Thun und Treiben eines phantasiereichen und eben besprochenen Volkes” (5, 1: 61). On occasion the issue of veracity is addressed directly, and the narrator asserts personal knowledge of incidents no less unusual or amazing than those, like the healing of a horse, which he records in the journal: “Wir selbst müssen gestehen, Zeugen unerwarteter Resultate gewesen zu seyn” (5, 1: 60) or informs the reader: “Folgenden Vorfall haben wir aus dem Munde eines glaubwürdigen Augenzeugen” (5, 1: 61).

At times, however, a certain bias, evidenced by a critical or laudatory stance, enters into the account, revealing not only the narrator's personal familiarity with the subject matter, but also the subjectivity of his perception. The bias is perhaps most blatant in the contrast the narrator draws between the inhabitants of the Paderborn and Münsterland regions; not surprisingly, his remarks reflect Droste's own views and are in accord with those found in Bei uns zu Lande, particularly in the descriptions of courtship, marriage, and marital life. The narrator uses the situation of a traveler to differentiate between the Paderborner and the Münsterländer. In the Paderborn area—the narrative voice informs the reader—such a traveler can expect to be ridiculed, even mislead, if he had not tipped the boys generously in advance: “Noch vor einer Stunde … haben kleine, schwarzbraune Schlingel … auf deine Frage nach dem Wege, Dich zuerst durch verstelltes Mißverstehen und Witzeleien gehöhnt, und Dir dann unfehlbar einen Pfad angegeben, wo Du wie eine Unke im Sumpfe, oder ein Abrahams-Widder in den Dornen gesteckt hast. …” The narrator's description of these “Schlingel” as being “im halben Naturzustande, ihre paar mageren Ziegen weniger hüteten, als bei ihnen Diebs wegen Wache standen …” reveals the distance with which he views them. In the Münsterland the situation is quite different. The immediate response—“‘Herr!’ sagt der Knabe, und reicht Dir eine Kußhand, ‘das Ort weiß ich nicht’”—evidences a courteous and deferential attitude. The inability to provide the needed information, as the reader subsequently learns, is born of neither insolence nor ignorance per se, but of naive honesty and a certain insularity of dialect, for the boy moments later runs after the stranger to ask if he perhaps were looking for a village, whose name the boy then renders in the local dialect. Receiving an affirmative response, he then leads the traveler to the next crossroads, points out the way to the desired village, and swiftly disappears before he can be rewarded with a coin (5, 1: 64).

Reflecting personal bias and sentiment, as well, are the narrator's concluding remarks—specifically his regret that the times were changing and that the life style so lovingly depicted in his commentary would soon be lost. After posing the question “Müssen wir noch hinzufügen, daß alle diese Zustände am Verlöschen sind, und nach vierzig Jahren vielleicht wenig mehr davon anzutreffen seyn möchte?,” he responds: “Auch leider ‘nein’, es geht ja überall so!” (5, 1: 74). These views, which indicate a conservative sentiment and a certain nostalgia on the part of the narrator (features also present in the narrative frames of Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande and Joseph), are more readily identified with the narrator than are those found in Die Judenbuche. The degree of personal commentary, however, remains limited, the intrusions are relatively discreet, and the stance, reserved.

In Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande and Joseph, the fictive narrators are identified by name, gender, and position; their personal preferences and prejudices are openly presented. The consistency of narrative stance achieved in Westphälische Schilderungen aus einer westphälischen Feder is maintained, interaction between observatory and participatory positions is avoided, and the narrator roles are clearly delineated and strictly observed. In Bei uns zu Lande,⁸ the descriptions of persons and countryside, in nature not unlike those of Westphälische Schilderungen, are attributed to a specific and identified individual, and uniformity of narrative style follows their presentation as journal entries in the alleged “Handschrift eines Edelmannes aus der Lausitz,” mentioned already in the work's subtitle. The manuscript, ostensibly discovered in the archives of a manor house, is being offered to the public by a fictive narrator-editor, who describes himself as “Rentmeister meines guten, gnädigen Herrn” (5, 1: 126) in an introduction that serves as the frame of Bei uns zu Lande. The Rentmeister has no immediate personal or direct emotional tie to the document or its content. As the ostensible Herausgeber, he is in a position to praise the manuscript, which he claims presents an image of his Westphalians that is more accurate, and more acceptable, than that to be found in material being published in his day. Furthermore, since it was penned by an outsider, as he points out, the manuscript is free of regional bias.⁹ Even “der gnädige Herr,” to whom he had shown his “find,” reputedly commented, “von einem Westphalen geschrieben würde es weniger bedeutend sein, aus dem Munde eines Fremden sei es ein klares und starkes Zeugniß, was im Familienarchive nicht unterdrückt werden dürfe” (5, 1: 130).

In contrast, personal partiality is freely—even proudly—acknowledged by the fictive narrator-editor in the opening sentence: “Ich bin ein Westphale und zwar ein Stockwestphale,” to which he unequivocally adds: “Gott sei Dank!” (5, 1: 125). He is clearly in sympathy with the views of Westphalia and its people that are presented within the manuscript and depicts the area in idyllic terms,¹⁰ but he is also careful to note his own credentials—his education and extensive travels—as if to strengthen his own credibility when he waxes eloquent about the beauties of his Münsterland homeland (5, 1: 125-26). Like the narrative voice in Westphälische Schilderungen, he, too, is a conservative and decries the changes which have taken place in the intervening years. He notes, for example, “seit etwa zwei Jahrzehenden, d. h. seit der Dampf sein Bestes thut das Landeskind in einen Weltbürger umzublasen, die Furcht beschränkt und eingerostet zu erscheinen es fast zur Sitte gemacht hat, die Schwächen der alma mater, welche man sonst Vaterland nannte und bald nur als den zufälligen Ort der Geburt bezeichnen wird mit möglichst schonungsloser Hand.” He attributes this new tendency to the individual's desire to provide “einen glänzenden Beweis seiner Vielseitigkeit,” concluding, “es ist bekanntlich ja unendlich trostloser für albern, als für schlimm zu gelten” (5, 1: 125). The narrator-editor also describes his own life, his travels, and his return to Westphalia twelve years earlier in sufficient detail to award the reader a picture of his personality and attitudes and an understanding of the context in which he is offering the manuscript to the public. More significantly, the information he supplies both enhances the credibility of his positive assessment of the Münsterland region and substantiates his personal reliability as a documentor.

The Rentmeister—who is ostensibly separated in time, if not in sentiment from the story he is presenting—clearly wishes the document to be accepted as authentic. His position as a trusted employee who resides on the estate, now owned by a different family, endows him with an aura of objectivity and credibility. The introduction he provides (which also supplies information about the subsequent fate and untimely death of the original author, garnered from two yellowed letters found together with the manuscript) not only explains the fragmentary nature of the work, but also serves as a postscript. Based upon these letters, the Rentmeister concludes that the diarist seems to have been “ein munterer und wohlmeinender Mann … billig genug für einen Ausländer, mit der so seltenen Gabe eine fremde Nationalität rein aufzufassen. …” (The Rentmeister, however, qualifies the term “Ausländer” by noting the author of the manuscript was “freilich nur halb fremd, denn das westphälische Blut dringt noch in's hundertste Glied.”) The information presented in the diary and extracted from the letters is further enhanced by the Rentmeister's own knowledge of subsequent events, gained through his personal contacts with the descendants of the family. He thus provides the reader with a brief history of the fates of the family members described in the internal text:

Zuerst der alte Herr, der sich beim Botanisiren erkältete … schwand hin an der leichten Erkältung wie ein Hauch; dann der junge Herr Everwin … der in Wien ein trauriges, vorzeitiges Ende fand, im Duell … Fräulein Sophie starb ihnen bald nach, sie war nie recht gesund gewesen und diese beide Stöße zu hart für sie—meines Herrn Mutter mußte die Geburt ihres Kindes mit dem Leben bezahlen. …

The Rentmeister had met the mother, the grandmother of his employer, who was in fact Anna's child and the only surviving member of the family: “eine steinalte Frau, aber lebendig, heftig und aller ihrer Geisteskräfte mächtig bis zum letzten Athemzüge” (5, 1: 129). The presentation of such information furnished in medias res in the alleged document not only clearly establishes the fictive narrator-editor's temporal distance, but also serves to collaborate yet further the reliability of the manuscript presented in the text—and hence the veracity of its contents—granting it an aura of authenticity, a quality which Droste consistently sought to achieve in her works. Indeed the Rentmeister insists in his last statement: “Es ist kein Roman, es ist unser Land …” (5, 1: 130). His words address explicitly the claim to authenticity already interwoven in the texts.

The manuscript itself is attributed to an “Edelmann aus der Lausitz, Lehnsvetter einer angesehenen seit zwanzig Jahren erloschenen Familie, deren Güter meinem Herrn zugekommen sind …” (5, 1: 128), and purports to be a record of his observations of his Westphalian relatives and their life and a description of his experiences while with them. Within the manuscript, the issue of narrative perspective is clearly defined and maintained: the ostensible author is an outsider and thus ideally suited to the role of observer. He functions both as observer and recorder and neither has nor assumes access to the unexpressed thoughts or feelings of the individuals. Describing his arrival at the home of his distant relatives in Westphalen and subsequently the lifestyle and activities of that family, he reports essentially what he sees, hears, and does, as well as his reactions to the events that he witnesses and the people he meets.

Although the Vetter is not directly involved in the fates of those with whom he is staying and becomes only minimally engaged in the life about him that he records, a gradual loss of detachment and increasing personal involvement with the individuals are discernible as the manuscript proceeds. This shift is perhaps most in evidence in his discussion of Sophie (another of Droste's modified self-portraits), in particular regarding signs of illness elicited by her singing: “Mir wird todtangst dabei und ich suche dem Gesange oft vorzubeugen” (5, 1: 143). Since he is ostensibly writing of his first-hand experiences and observations, his report lacks the temporal distance to events and individuals claimed by the narrator-author of the frame, although the Vetter's delay in recording his observations and experiences presumably allows the report to benefit from his subsequent reflection and hence be distilled, at least in part, from the immediacy of experience. His origin “aus dem Lausitz,” however, gives him a stranger's perspective, as well as the credibility alluded to in the frame, qualities the narrator-editor, as an acknowledged Westphalian, forfeits.

The motivation for the diary, as well as the temporal relationship of the journal to the events depicted, are clearly defined within the text, and the limited interplay between the author's roles as participant-observer and as diarist is unified by his reflections at the time of his writing and by the narrative nature of the writing process itself. Thus the reader learns that the Vetter, who is unaccustomed to the early hour at which his host family retires, is without his customary reading materials; as a result he decides to record, every evening before retiring, his activities and experiences in Westphalia, the home of his ancestors. He begins his diary some two months after his arrival in response to his own question: “Was soll ein ehrlicher Lausitzer machen, der um elf seine letzte Piquetparthie anzufangen gewöhnt ist?”; the answer seems so close at hand, he wonders why he had delayed so long: “Warum schreibe ich nicht oder vielmehr warum habe ich nicht geschrieben diese zwei Monate lang?” After he begins his diary, which constitutes the three extant chapters of Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande,¹¹ the Vetter becomes convinced of the intrinsic worth of his project and views his journal not only as an escape from boredom but as a source of future enjoyment, commenting: “Ich weiß es wie mich einst freuen wird diese Blätter zu lesen, wenn dieses fremdartige Intermezzo meines Lebens weit hinter mir liegt,” adding “vielleicht mehr, als ich jetzt glaube, denn es ist mir zuweilen, als wolle das zwanzigfach verdünnte westphälische Blut sich noch geltend in mir machen” (5, 1: 131). The journal is thus not intended for publication, or for any eyes but his, a device which grants further credence to the text.

The first chapter, entitled “Der Edelmann aus der Lausitz und das Land seiner Vorfahren,” written from memory two months after the events described, presents the incidents of his difficult and wearisome journey, his arrival at the ancestral home, and his reception by his relatives. It is followed by descriptions of subsequent conversations and incidents at the family home, which also serve as an introduction to the nature of the people of this region. The Vetter records his own gradual adjustment to a different lifestyle and his acceptance of the family's offer to stay longer. The descriptions reveal the insight into the family and their ways he had gained in the intervening two months, for the Vetter freely admits his initial naiveté and recognizes the subsequent alteration in his own perception and manners. At the date of writing, for example, he understands the impression his elaborate and ostentatious clothing must have made upon his arrival: “Jetzt weiß ich dieses und es demüthigt mich nicht—hätte ich es damals gewußt, so würde ich es mich allerdings in einen kläglichen, innern Zustand von Scham und Zorn versetzt haben. …” In retrospect, the books that the Baron had shown him that first day appear in a new light: “ich dachte zu meiner Unterhaltung—jetzt weiß ich aber, daß es ein schlauer Streich vom alten Herrn war, der mir so heimlich auf den Zahn fühlte, wie es mit den adligen Künsten bei mir beschaffen sei—nämlich mit Latein, Oeconomia und Ritterschaftsverhältnissen …” (5, 1: 36). The confession of the relative naiveté of his first impression also serves to underline the sequential nature of the document and to support its claim of authenticity.

The following chapters are presented as having been written on subsequent nights. “Der Herr und seine Familie” is devoted to a description of the members of the family, their lifestyle, and incidents from their daily activities; and “Im Hof und Garten,” which remains incomplete, presents the events of a single day spent with the Hausherr. It also includes two of Droste's own poems, “das Mädchen am Bache” (assumed to be “Junge Liebe”) and “der Knabe im Rohr” (“Der Knabe im Moor”), which are attributed within the work to a young would-be poet, Wilhelm Friese. The reader remains aware not only of the Vetter's role as narrator—“Ich bin kein natürlicher Verehrer der Musik …” (5, 1: 142) or “Ich bin kein Arzt, aber …” (5, 1: 143)—but also his concern with his writing project: “Ich bemerke eben, daß ich den Fehler habe, mich in Stimmungen hinein und hinaus zu schreiben …” (5, 1: 144), and his determination to be accurate. His consciousness of both his relationship to the figures and theirs to him is evident in comments, such as those referring to Fräulein Anna, “in die man mich etwas verliebt glaubt” (5, 1: 143), or his cousin, “ich halte es für unmöglich diesen Mann nicht lieb zu haben” (5, 1: 144). He also analyzes the relationships within the family, noting, for example of Anna: “Den Onkel ehrt sie, weiß ihn aber nicht zu schätzen, der Tante wendet sie eine zornige Liebe zu, da sie das verwandte Element fühlt und vor Ungeduld überschäumt, es so beengt zu sehen” (5, 1: 143).

A comparison of Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande and Ledwina, both thinly disguised autobiographical accounts of Droste's family life, reveals striking changes in narrative formulation and perspective. It is an older Droste, now, who returns to the subject matter obliquely treated in her first work—her own family and her life as a young woman within that family. Although Droste claimed she had not intended to depict her family—“das war eigentlich nicht meine Absicht, ich wollte nur einzelne Züge entlehnen, und übrigens mich an die allgemeinen Charakterzüge des Landes halten,” she confessed that she herself recognized “meine lieben Eltern so deutlich darin … daß man mit Fingern darauf zeigen konnte. …” Indeed she offered that resemblance as the reason for not continuing with the project: “Nun, fürchte ich, wird es Jedermann gradezu für Portrait nehmen, und jede kleine Schwäche, jede komische Seite die ich dem Publikum preis gebe, mir als eine scheusliche Impietaet anrechnen …” (9, 1: 250). Droste, in the letter to her uncle, cites this concern as a reason for halting work on Bei uns zu Lande, and, although she did return to it again, she never completed the project¹²

By inserting an additional protagonist to serve as narrator in Bei uns zu Lande, Droste avoids the close association of the narrative perspective with the protagonist that characterizes Ledwina. Through this strategy, Droste's recollections of the life of her family are cast as the fictional eye-witness account of a visitor, and her family and she herself are presented as an outside observer might have described and judged them. As a result of Droste's use of fictional narrators and the format of the writings attributed to them, there are no shifts from an observatory to a participatory stance in Bei uns zu Lande and no deviation from the use of the narrative past or deployment of the experiential present tense. There is similarly no entry into the inner thoughts, dreams, or feelings of the individuals portrayed in the text nor any attempt at authorial omniscience; indeed, the text exhibits no intrusions that transcend the limitations of the given fictive narrator(s) to provide supplementary, elucidating, or corrective information. Explanatory and judgmental comments incorporated in the text are presented as simply those of the narrators. They are formulated into words that reflect their attitudes and perceptions, their personality, and their position; and the narrator-authors remain within the confines of their own personal limitations and the knowledge and insights appropriate to them. Nothing extraneous to their experience, nothing beyond their ken is depicted, and neither fictive narrator appears susceptible to flights of fantasy, dreams, or mental projections. As a result these texts—unlike both Ledwina and Die Judenbuche—manifest no variation in narrative perspective, no intrusion of unaffiliated views, and no inclusion of reflections attributable to a social consciousness that may conflict with or differ from the views or attitudes of the narrators.

JOSEPH

“wörtlich der würdigen Frau nachgeschrieben”

(5, 1: 156)

The third work Joseph. Eine Kriminalgeschichte, an unfinished venture into the genre of criminal or detective story¹³ and again a frame story, is the only prose work besides Ledwina not related to Droste's Westphalian project. The first reference to the work appears in an 1837 letter to Wilhelm Junkmann, in which Droste enumerates her literary plans. Included on her list are “zwei Stoffe,” one of them is a “Criminalgeschichte,” which Droste describes as based upon an actual occurrence that had been related to her “von einer nahbetheiligten Person …, die einen furchtbaren und durchaus nicht zu erwischenden Räuber fast 20 Jahre lang als Knecht in ihrem Hause hatte” (8, 1: 228).¹⁴ The initial work on the manuscript is linked to an edition of six Erzählungen, which Droste and Elise Rüdiger discussed in 1844 and contemplated publishing with Cotta. Progress on the planned contributions to the joint venture was slow. In October 1844, Droste complained: “Mit den Erzählungen will es nicht recht voran, ich bin noch an der ersten,—recht schöner Stoff, aber nicht auf westphälischem Boden, und nun fehlen mir alle Quellen, Bücher wie Menschen, um mich wegen der Localitæten Raths zu erholen …” (10, 1: 234). In February 1845, Droste reported to Rüdiger that she was waiting for more information for the Joseph-project; in the meantime, she wrote: “Ich brüte jetzt über einem Stoff zur dritten Erzählung für unser Buch, um doch ans Werk zu kommen …” (10, 1: 259-60; Die Judenbuche was to be included as the first of her three contributions). Again in March she mentions the project—and the hope “jetzt auch endlich ernstlich an unsre gemeinschaftliche Arbeit zu kommen”—and asserts: “Meine Stoffe sind so weitläufig daß sie doch ein ziemlich dickes Buch ausfüllen werden …” (10, 1: 271). The project, however, never came to fruition, nor did Droste's later plans to write other prose narratives. A reference to a novella in 1847, from which Droste read aloud, appears to be the last mention of the work.¹⁵

The parenthetical insertion that introduces the text—“Nach den Erinnerungen einer alten Frau mitgetheilt von einem alten Moortopf, der auf seinem eigenen Herd sitzt und sich selbst kocht” (5, 1: 153)—defines its narrative genesis even more completely than does the subtitle of Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande. The emphasis on the source and the reliability of the events to be presented parallels that of Bei uns zu Lande and reflects Droste's interest in establishing narrative veracity and her commitment to literature that reflects the reality of the world it seeks to depict. From the outset, the roles of the two narrators are clearly established. Frau Konstanze von Ginkel, the protagonist-narrator, had experienced the events of the tale as a girl and in her later years related them to friend and neighbor Caspar Bernjen, the fictive narrator of the frame. Bernjen recorded her reminiscences during the period of their acquaintance, ostensibly transcribing them by memory after each conversation. Now, years later, he has decided to offer them to a contemporary readership as a record of the past, duly supplemented by his own introductory commentary. The work thus contains three distinct and separate fictive time levels: the events of Frau von Ginkel's past, the evenings of conversation and tale-telling that Bernjen and Frau von Ginkel shared, and most recently, the thoughts and commentary of the aged Bernjen that comprise the fictive present of the work's frame.

Bernjen, like the fictive author of Bei uns zu Lande, is separated in time, place, and person from the events of the story he has transcribed. His introduction, which constitutes the first portion of the narrative frame, indicates his relationship to Mevrouw von Ginkel, the setting for her story-telling, and the manner in which he recorded her tale. It provides as well an explanation for his decision now, after so many years, to make his record of her experiences public, “da meine gute Frau von Ginkel ohne Zweifel längst in ihren Pelzschuhen verstorben ist, mir ferner kein Umstand einfällt, der ihr die Veröffentlichung unangenehm machen könnte. …” Furthermore, he wished to help his youngest nephew—“der Gott sei's geklagt, sich auf die Literatur geworfen hat”—in his search for “einen Beitrag in gemüthlichem Stile” (5, 1: 156).¹⁶

Bernjen also uses the frame to present himself, giving his name, identifying himself as the neighbor to whom Frau von Ginkel is speaking, and indicating his position “an der linken Seite des Theetisches.” He describes himself as “einen ansehnlichen, korpulenten Mann mit gesunden Gesichtsfarben in den besten Jahren mit blauem Rock mit Stahlknöpfen und einer irdenen Pfeife im Munde” and signals his own orientation: “Es geht nichts über Deutlichkeit und Ordnung in allen Dingen” (5, 1: 156). This self-introduction is intended to lend the subsequent narration credibility and provides a certain concreteness to the narrative situation. The concern with reliability, fulfilled in Bei uns zu Lande by the stratagem of ostensibly presenting a manuscript retrieved from its resting place in the archives and by documenting its credibility, can be seen in Bernjen's unequivocal assertion that he had recorded his neighbor's conversations accurately and without elaboration of fact or style—they are thus to be read as a verbatim record of her recounted past. Her character, as presented by Bernjen, serves yet further to vouch for the reliability of her own remarks and thus for the veracity of the internal story.

Similar to the narrator in Westphälische Schilderungen and the Rentmeister in Bei uns zu Lande, Bernjen is not without personal bias. Indeed, his personality is distinctive and his view of the world colors his perception of Frau von Ginkel (and the events of her life) and affects the manner of his own presentation, for it is clear that, in addition to being genuinely fond of her, he also applauds the values she represents. His presence and his uniqueness provide a context for appreciating the story he offers and affect reader response. Not only had Bernjen's presence and his interest in his neighbor's past provided the impetus for Frau von Ginkel's reminiscing, but like the Rentmeister, he also believes in the intrinsic worth of personal journals and is convinced, in traditional Biedermeier fashion, that the account he recorded “in seiner einfachen Unscheinbarkeit mehr Aufschlüsse über Volk, Zeit und das Menschenherz gäbe, als Manches zehnmal besser Geschriebene” (5, 1: 156).

His own conservatism, reminiscent of that expressed by the narrators in the two previous works, is also reflected in his concern with the changing times and the accompanying loss of the innocence of a simpler life spent at home. An awareness of the passage of time dominates his commentary, beginning with his opening words “Die Zeit schreitet fort” and those of the second paragraph “in meiner Kindheit” and “in jener Zeit,” a perspective reiterated by the initial sentence of the third paragraph: “Jetzt ist es anders” (5, 1: 153). As Bernjen recalls the changes in the world about him—particularly the increased travel—that he has witnessed during his long life, his preference for the olden days when the motto “Bleib im Lande und nähre Dich redlich” was an actual way of life becomes apparent: “Ich habe mich nicht eben allzuweit umgesehen, doch immer weiter, als mir lieb ist” (5, 1: 153). He had, however, found two areas in which he was able to take pleasure: the Black Forest and the Netherlands. It was during his stay in the latter that he became acquainted with his neighbor, an elderly lady, whose story he was subsequently to put to paper. Although he assures the reader that he might well have recorded many things: “Wäre ich ein romantischer Hasenfuß gewesen und hätte ich die Gewohnheit gehabt, meine guten Augen … Nachts mit Tagebuchschreiben zu verderben, es stände doch jetzt wohl Manches darin, was ich gerne nochmals läse …,” he did commit himself to recording the story of her life. The extant text of Joseph presents the first of her tales—an incident “vielleicht die einzig wirklich auffallende in Mevrouws Leben” (5, 1: 156)—and indicates that the planned work was to contain several separate stories, divided by segments of the narrative frame. Frau von Ginkel, for example, after completing the story of the compulsive gambler, notes her guest's interest in her uncle and offers to tell of the catastrophe that befell him, “damit Sie sehen, was der … für ein Mann war.” She adds, as if an afterthought: “Aber da ist eine andere kuriose Geschichte hinein verflochten, die Mynheer gewiß interessiren würde, aber etwas lang ist.” The narrator, who had never seen his hostess “in so mittheilender Stimmung,” was determined, “diese zur Erweiterung meiner Menschenkenntniß um jeden Preis zu benutzen” (5, 1: 167) and assures her of his interest and time. The manuscript, however, breaks off, just as she is about to begin with her next narrative.

Frau von Ginkel, the narrator of the story proper, which is told in straightforward conversational style in first-person, is clearly identified and provided a personality as well as a history, and her narration is directed to a specific, identified listener whose presence is also indicated in the text—a feature unique to this work. (Westphälische Schilderungen, which also exhibits a unified narrative stance, is restricted to the observations and views of the narrator and includes no reference to his personal life and circumstances.) Occasional remarks in Joseph incorporate a reference to her listener, such as “Mynheer wissen wohl, der Ertrinkende hält sich an einem Strohhalm!” or “Mynheer, der Wille ist doch so gut wie die That” (5, 1: 160), thereby indicating Frau von Ginkel's awareness of his presence. In these remarks, Droste chooses to retain the Dutch form of address, Mynheer, which not only parallels the narrator's frequent use of Mevrouw in referring to Frau von Ginkel, bringing the flavor of the Netherlands to the reminiscences, but also emphasizes the original narrative situation. An earlier comment of Bernjens, too, serves as the impetus for Frau von Ginkel's tale. Alluding to an earlier reference he had made to his parents when he was in his forties, she comments: “Ich weiß, was es heißt, keine Mutter haben und den Vater im fünfzehnten Jahre verlieren” (5, 1: 157), and then proceeds to tell of the events which led to her own father's death.

The interaction of her roles both as protagonist—and thus participant in and observer of the events she relates—and as subsequent narrator is detectable throughout the text and integrated into it. While her account of her childhood is told in the narrative past, Frau von Ginkel's words that are addressed to her friend and neighbor Bernjen are cast in the present tense: “Ich weiß, was es heißt …” or: “Ich weiß nicht, ob es daher kommt. …” Furthermore, while the events recalled are presented essentially as she had experienced them as a fourteen-year-old girl (Stanzchen), they are on occasion illuminated or corrected by knowledge or perceptions garnered through the experiences of subsequent years. Comments of this nature, as well as occasional key conversations from her past, are given verbatim in her recounting and are also cast in present tense. The impact of her narrative role is discernible, too, in her reflections and editorializing comments that intrude into her recollection of the past. Comments such as “Ich wuchs indessen in ein paar hübschen Mansardenzimmern bei einer Gouvernante … heran …”; “Ich sah, so oft mein Vater auf die Börse ging, die Commis wie Hasen am Fenster spähen …” (5, 1: 158); and “Von dem, was zunächst geschah, kann ich nur wenig sagen. Ich verstand das Meiste nur halb, und es schien mir Alles wie Nichts nach dem, was geschehen” (5, 1: 163) reflect the narrative mode into which her memories have been cast. Others indicate knowledge acquired subsequently or insight garnered with the passage of time and experience: “Ich wußte … nicht, daß die arme Person, die in der That eine sehr schlechte Gesundheit und mit ihren 48 Jahren betrübte Aussichten in die Zukunft hatte, ihre ganze Hoffnung auf H. Steenwick setzte …” or: “Wenn ich bedenke, in welchem betrübten herzzerreißenden Tone sie dies sagte, so muß ich der armen Frau alle ihre Schwächen vergeben …” (5, 1: 160). Yet others reveal the platitudes of the day, accepted and assimilated by her in a lifetime of living: “Ein Spieler ist wie ein Betrunkener, wie ein Besessener, auf dem der Böse handelt wie eine zweite fremde Seele.” Such thinking also plays a role in the accepted interpretation of Herr Steenwick's drowning as accidental rather than intentional, allowing him “ein ehrliches Grab”: “So wurde denn angenommen, er habe, wie unglückliche Spieler häufig, sich zu viel Courage getrunken und sei so ohne Absicht dem Scheldeufer zu nahe gekommen” (5, 1: 166). Any bias exhibited in her story or editorializing comments incorporated within it are thus presented as hers and are consistent with her view of herself, her past, and the world as she perceived and experienced it.

Mevrouw von Ginkel's direct presentation of her early experiences in which her protagonist perspective is maintained, the illuminating commentary she provides in her role as narrator, and the description of the setting and situation that occasioned their telling are integrated in the narrative and cast her discourse within a specific social context. The possible interaction of recalled participation and “current” observation in her narration is structured by the narrative situation, defined by Bernjen, and is clearly divided into a remembered past and a present (of which he is part and which he, as the narrator of the frame, presents from a subsequent point in time). In Joseph the central dichotomy of protagonist and fictive narrator and the interaction between the participatory and the observatory roles are not divided by individual: Caspar von Bernjen has no personal knowledge of the events being narrated and is, technically speaking, at best only observer-listener of its oral narration. Instead, the dichotomy is contained within the person of Frau von Ginkel, where it is constituted by her experiences as the girl Stanzchen and by her memories and assessments as the elderly Mevrouw von Ginkel. The observatory stance is thus not identified with a non-participant whose experiences are separate from the events being depicted; the events and their location are distanced by time and place from their narration, not by person.

Furthermore, the potential discrepancy, distance, or tension resulting from the separation of participant and observer is muted by the integration of these roles in a single figure, who also serves as the narrator of her own story and in that role unifies and fuses within her tale the participatory and observatory aspect of her protagonist past and the observatory and narrative nature of her storytelling present. Similarly, the discrepancy between personal experiences and societal expectations, which so marks the conflicts between the participatory and observatory stances in Ledwina, is eliminated by the narrative perspective provided by the elderly Frau von Ginkel, whose life has been spent in total harmony with societal mores and expectations. The narrative frame provided by Bernjen further serves to internalize and submerge the theoretical duality within the text. The possible conflict or inconsistency of the protagonist-narrator role is thus reconciled by the nature of the narrative mode provided within the structure and content of the work itself. By having even the source of the observatory comments both personalized and identified with the protagonist, albeit with an older manifestation of that protagonist, Droste eliminates the tension and occasional confusion between observer and participant found in other works.

Neither within the frame constituted by his commentary nor within the internal story attributed to Frau von Ginkel is there any ambiguity of narrative stance. The central story of Joseph—Stanzchen's life in her father's home and the events, including the cashier's embezzlement, which led to her father's financial bankruptcy and his fatal hemorrhage—is presented in first-person in conversational tone, preserving the mood and form of the initial telling. Frau von Ginkel relates the events of her youth with a dispassionate tone—the events are far removed from her present, the agonies of that childhood dilemma, as well as the loss of her father, long put to rest. As a result the narrative never loses its distanced stance, even when her narration slips into the participatory mode and presents dialog verbatim. True to his promise, “daß ich nur wörtlich der würdigen Frau nachgeschrieben habe und mich sowohl gegen alle poetischen Ausdrücke als überhaupt gegen den Verdacht der Schriftstellerei … auf's kräftigste verwahre” (5, 1: 156), the fictive editor does not intrude within Frau von Ginkel's story.

As Frau von Ginkel concludes the tale that constitutes the text of Joseph, the narrative returns to the frame and the narrative situation: “Hier schien Mevrouw von Ginkel ihre Mittheilungen endigen zu wollen. Sie schüttete frischen Thee auf. …” In this portion, which appears to have been designed as a bridge between the first and second story, comments extraneous to her tale-telling, which Frau von Ginkel addresses directly to Bernjen during their evenings, are not recapitulated but rather are indicated by a phrase, such as “Mevrouw errieth meine Absicht und sagte,” “fuhr fort,” or “fügte … hinzu.” Bernjen's reactions and his attempts to encourage his hostess to yet further reminiscences are presented only in summary fashion: “Ich hingegen war in eine Stimmung gerathen …”; “So that ich einige blinde Fragen …”; “Ich versicherte, daß ich alle nöthigen Maßregeln getroffen …”; or “So betheuerte ich, daß ich nie nach dem Thee noch zu Abend esse …” (5, 1: 167). Convinced of his interest and his desire to learn yet more of the events her past and of the individuals she had known, Frau von Ginkel “fuhr … ohne weitere Bemerkungen in ihren Mittheilungen fort, nur zuweilen kleine Pausen machend, um mir einzuschenken oder ihrem goldenen Döschen zuzusprechen, wobei sie mich in so wohlwollender Weise zum Mitgenuß einlud, daß ich bei mir an die Friedenspfeife der Indianer denken mußte …” and Bernjen, indicating the format his transcription of the subsequent tales will take, notes he would indicate such interruptions “durch Absätze … und dem Leser die Ausmalung der kleinen Zwischenspiele überlassen werde.” The following words, intended as the opening for the next tale—“Also Mevrouw fuhr fort”: (5, 1: 168)—are the last of the Joseph-fragment.

Viewed in sequence, a development in Droste's use of narrative perspective becomes apparent. The fluctuations in narrative stance incorporated, but largely unstructured in Ledwina and so effectively used to enhance the thematic concerns of Die Judenbuche, are stabilized and codified in Droste's later prose. The temporal dimension, essentially absent from the narration in Ledwina, at times consciously accentuated to emphasize the narrative mode deployed in Die Judenbuche, is now regularized. The narrative voice, barely perceptible in the text of Ledwina (where it is neither developed nor consistent in format) and more defined in Die Judenbuche (where it is both refined and manipulated in accord with authorial intent) is identified and brought into conformity with intra-textual protagonists in these works. The narrative vision of the internal narrative voice becomes increasingly limited as it moves from the non-personalized narrator in Ledwina, to the unidentified narrator in Die Judenbuche and to these specific, identified protagonists who acknowledge an intentional limitation of narrative autonomy, preferring to maintain the fictive pretenses of “personal knowledge” and “actual experience.”

As a result the format is more consistent, but the works are also stylistically less interesting. The rich divergence and convolutions of narrative vision and stance so skillfully deployed in Die Judenbuche are replaced by a uniform, but “flatter” narrative style, consistent in execution, but virtually devoid of narrative play or irony and stripped of ambiguity and excitement. Although such narrative restrictions are inherent in the nature of these later prose works—a travel journal, a disguised family chronicle, and a detective story camouflaged as personal reminiscences—that fact itself does not account for the changes in Droste's narrative style. The absence of both fluctuation in narrative perspective and the alteration between the observatory and participatory modes in these works reflect less the choice of genre than a shift in the form and style of her prose. The shift appears to reflect a growing concern with credibility and concomitantly an effort to achieve an aura of realism for the events and individuals portrayed in her texts. Since Droste did continue to incorporate the direct participatory stance within her verse epics, such as Der ‘Spiritus familiaris’ des Roßtäuschers, composed during the period of work on her Westphalian project, as well as in her poems, such as “Durchwachte Nacht,” written subsequently to Joseph, the absence of participatory elements in Droste's last prose writings reflects a selection of structure and stance that excludes participatory features and emphasizes the “narrated” nature of the works.

Droste in these last prose works remains increasingly within the constraints of the narrative situation, avoiding comments which exceed the temporal framework or the knowledge of the fictive narrator, whether specified as in Joseph and Bei uns zu Lande or undefined as in Westphälische Schilderungen. In these works, as in the somewhat earlier Die Judenbuche, Droste appears more concerned with maintaining a perspective limited by social consensus, one which excludes the spontaneity and concomitant uncensored nature of expression associated with the participatory mode. Along with the removal of the inconsistencies, the breaks in narrative perspective, and the inappropriate intrusions or internally unjustified shifts of view, the vitality and freshness, which the apparent spontaneous intrusions of the participatory mode brought to the narrative text, are dissipated. The elimination of such direct presentation of the thoughts or reactions of a participant or involved narrator and the increasingly controlled and careful prose of these later works, however, results in a loss of the spontaneity and freshness, the variation and vitality used so effectively in Die Judenbuche. By avoiding the participatory mode and relying upon a disinterested observatory stance, Droste sacrifices much of the richness and vitality of her earlier works—the intensity is gone; the emotional impact muted. The feeling of being part of the events depicted is also lost for the reader, who is left with the sense of viewing the events “second hand,” forfeiting the sense of immediacy. In retrospect, the consistent narrative stance appears too consciously formulated, too carefully restricted, perhaps too contrived to be artistically successful. Droste's best prose works, just as her best verse epics, occur when she was able to incorporate and yet control the participatory, creative energies within the textual dimension of the work.

Notes

1. The work is also known as Bilder aus Westfalen, the title under which it appeared in Letzte Gaben. Cf. also Woesler 1973.

2. Sengle [Friedrich] (1972, 238), in discussing the interest in “Reisebeschreibung” during the Biedermeier period, includes Droste's considerations concerning Bei uns zu Lande, the title she had applied to her as yet undefined Westphalian project; cf. also Niethammer's analysis of the differences in concept and style between the contributions of Droste, Freiligrath, and Schücking for Das malerische und romantische Westphalen (1992a).

3. Häntzschel urges that the fragment Bei uns zu Lande, as well as Westphälische Schilderungen, be viewed “innerhalb der Reisebilder-Mode ihrer Zeit,” rather than from the so often emphasized biographical perspective (1970, 190).

   Guthrie distinguishes Bei uns zu Lande as Reiseliteratur from the travel literature of that day, charging that Droste “did not share … the emergent universalistic impulse which motivated Romantic and Biedermeier writers to roam the world and write about their experiences” (1988, 353)—a position that fails to take into account that all the examples he cites were written by men or to acknowledge the difficulties which Droste, as a single woman with limited means, would have faced in such an undertaking (even if her health and the views of family were not deterrents).

   For a discussion of the early Reiseliteratur written by women, who began to enter this field in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, cf. Frederiksen 1989.

4. Guthrie, in comparing Bracebridge Hall with the fragment Bei uns zu Lande, at times confuses the latter with the earlier, larger, still amorphous “Bei uns zu Lande” project (the genesis for both Die Judenbuche and Westphälische Schriften). Cf. Guthrie 1988, 351.

5. Sengle suggests the work not be viewed “als Dichtung,” noting that Droste saw herself here “als gewissenhafte, ja im Sinne jener Zeit als wissenschaftliche Berichterstatterin über die volkskundlichen, wirtschaftlichen und geographischen Verhältnisse ihrer Heimatlandschaft” (1980, 634). In contrast, Emil Staiger describes the work as “eine meisterliche Prosa,” insisting “das Land wird ganz zum Bilde des Droste'schen Geistes” (1933, 61-62).

6. For responses to the work's appearance in the Historisch-politische Blätter, see 5, 2: 513-49.

7. Cf. also Woesler 1973 and R. Weber. For a discussion of the conception, writing, publication, and early reception of the work, see 5, 2: 504-13.

8. Cf. R. Weber, Huge 1973, and Guthrie 1988. For a discussion of the conception, writing, publication, and early reception of the work, see 5, 2: 650-54; 676-80.

9. This distinction is overlooked by W. Gössmann, who asserts: “Hier verbirgt sich die Dichterin hinter der Maske eines senilen Rentmeisters.” (There is also no textual support for his assessment of senility.) Gössmann, apparently confusing yet further the fictive author with the fictive editor, continues: “Mit ihm zieht sie sich auf das idyllische Münsterland zurück und überläßt in humoristischer Manier die große Welt sich selbst …” (1985, 175).

10. Cf. Böschenstein-Schäfer's comments on elements of Droste's “idyllische Heimatlandschaft” in this work and in Westphälische Schilderungen.

11. Droste's summary notes for the work (5, 1: 181-88) provide a sketch of twenty-four planned chapters, which were to incorporate materials in part similar to those found in Ledwina, such as the death of Clemens. Cf. Huge 1973 and 5, 2: 650-54.

12. For a discussion of possible reasons for the work remaining unfinished, see 5, 2: 653-54.

13. Die Judenbuche is viewed primarily as a novella, although critics have debated the genre issue, citing Droste's reference to it as Kriminalgeschichte or redefining it (as Henel does) as a Detektivgeschichte. Joseph, on the other hand, is generally considered to be a Kriminalgeschichte, the term with which Droste first identified the work and which serves as its subtitle, although family members used the term “Novelle” and Droste referred to both as “Erzählungen” in her letters.

    Cf. Huge's discussion with regard to both Die Judenbuche (5, 2: 231-32; 1980) and Joseph (5, 2: 723).

14. For a discussion of Droste's sources, including her earlier visit to the Netherlands, cf. 5, 2: 715-17; 722-26.

15. Cf. 5, 2: 723, 725-26, for a discussion of possible reasons for Droste's failure to finish the work, though ill-health may have been a decisive factor.

16. The description of Bernjen's nephew and his search for publishable material is reminiscent of the young Levin Schücking.

Works Cited

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. Ed. Winfried Woesler. [13 vols.] Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1978-.

Böschenstein-Schäfer, Renate. “Die Struktur des Idyllischen im Werk der Annette von Droste-Hülshoff.” Kleine Beiträge zur Droste-Forschung 3 (1974/75) [1975]: 25-49.

Frederiksen, Elke. “Der Blick in die Ferne: Zur Reiseliteratur von Frauen.” Gnüg and Möhrmann 1989, 104-122.

Gössmann, Wilhelm. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Ich und Spiegelbild. Zum Verständnis der Dichterin und ihres Werkes. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1985.

Guthrie, John. “Washington Irving's Bracebridge Hall and Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande.” Modern Language Review 83 (1988): 351-63.

Häntzschel, Günter. “Annette von Droste-Hülshoff.” Zur Literatur der Restaurationsepoche 1815-1848: Forschungsreferate und Aufsätze. Ed. Jost Hermand and Manfred Windfuhr. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1970. 151-201.

Huge, Walter. “Bei uns zu Lande auf dem Lande: Studien zur Arbeitsweise der Droste am Beispiel eines unbekannten Entwurfes.” Kleine Beiträge zur Droste-Forschung [2] (1972/73) [1973]: 119-38.

Niethammer, Ortrun. “Abbruch einer Idylle: Die unterschiedlichen Konzeptionen Westfalens von Ferdinand Freiligrath, Levin Schücking und Annette von Droste-Hülshoff im Malerischen und romantischen Westphalen.” Niethammer and Belemann 1992a, 81-90.

———, and Claudia Belemann, eds. Ein Gitter aus Musik und Sprache: Feministische Analysen zu Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1992.

Sengle, Friedrich. “Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797-1848).” Biedermeierzeit: Deutsche Literatur im Spannungsfeld zwischen Restauration und Revolution 1815-1848. Vol. 3: Die Dichter. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1980, 592-639.

———. Biedermeierzeit: Deutsche Literatur im Spannungsfeld zwischen Restauration und Revolution 1815-1848. Vol. 2: Die Formenwelt. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1972.

Staiger, Emil. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Wege zur Dichtung 14. Horgen-Zürich: Münster, 1933.

Weber, Rosemarie. Westfälisches Volkstum in Leben und Werk der Dichterin Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Münster: Aschendorff, 1966.

Woesler, Winfried. “‘Westphälische Schilderungen aus einer westphälischen Feder’: Vorbereiten für eine kritische Ausgabe.” Kleine Beiträge zur Droste-Forschung [2] (1972/73) [1973]: 72-88.