Grillparzer's Der arme Spielmann possesses the quality of all deeply poetic works to evoke responses of great variety, each one articulating the essence of the work through new insights into characters, incidents, images and language. Silz¹, examining social and psychological realism in Der arme Spielmann, points to the victory of the reality of ideas over the reality of things and people; Brinkmann², through an analysis of the narrative technique, sheds light on the discord between the ideal and the real at the core of Grillparzer's world; Politzer³ discusses the theme of “Begegnung” and reveals transformations and humanizing effects brought about by the encounters in this novella. These studies may serve as examples for many others.⁴ to illustrate the diverse possibilities that exist in the treatment of Der arme Spielmann. The study presented here proposes to approach the meaning of Grillparzer's novella through an examination of its structure. Such an investigation seems particularly justified since the similarity of this novella to a musical composition suggests that formal elements play an important part in indicating themes and ideas.

The structure of Der arme Spielmann resembles quite closely that of a sonata with its exposition, development and recapitulation or: statement of theme, variation of theme and summary restatement. In Grillparzer's novella, these divisions correspond to the opening frame (“Anfangsrahmen”), the main narrative and the concluding frame (“Schlußrahmen”). Just as the exposition of a sonata commonly contains a tonic and a dominant, so also in the opening of Der arme Spielmann we can detect two related themes. We detect them visually in the movements of the narrator as he first goes with the stream of the people toward the Brigittenau and the “Volksfest” and then, just before reaching the fairgrounds, as he turns around and goes against the stream. These outward occurrences reflect, it would seem, an inner situation. As he slowly moves on toward the fairgrounds, the narrator desires only to give himself up to the joys of the festival, to join the masses and to get to know through them the source and origin of the loftier forms of life: “ … wahrlich man kann die Berühmten nicht verstehen, wenn man die Obskuren nicht durchgefühlt hat. Von dem Wortwechsel weinerhitzter Karrenschieber spinnt sich ein unsichtbarer aber ununterbrochener Faden bis zum Zwist der Göttersöhne … ” (p.227)⁵. To accomplish this purpose, the narrator patiently endures crowding and endless delays on the road toward his goal. However, chance—destiny—turns his attention into the opposite direction when he notices a beggar musician by the side of the road.

The common man, the porters, the servant girls and all the other “Kinder der Dienstbarkeit und Arbeit” no longer hold his attention; it is rather the strangeness, the uncommoness of the beggar musician that attracts the narrator now. The odd sight of the beggar playing from music placed on a music stand, marks him immediately as a person who does not really belong to the beggar type. The man's cleanliness together with the unmistakable signs of his poverty add to the strangeness of the appearance. When the musician then speaks the Latin words: “sunt certi denique fines,” picks up his empty hat and leaves just when the prospects of getting some alms begin to improve, the character of the man stands out most clearly. Intrigued by such signs of the unusual, the narrator follows the beggar musician as he moves against the stream of the people. His only desire now is to penetrate the mystery surrounding this uncommon man. “Ich zitterte vor Begierde nach dem Zusammenhang.” (p. 229) The original intention is forgotten and has turned into its opposite, and the external reversal of direction stands as a visible sign for the internal reversal.

In the dense crowd, the narrator loses sight of the Spielmann. When, by chance, he finds him again, the Spielmann is surrounded by a group of children who ask him to play a waltz. He does indeed play for them but the children do not thank him for it. Scornfully they leave him and run off to an organ grinder. In their opinion, the musician played nothing resembling a waltz, though he himself assures the narrator that it was one: “‘Ich spielte einen Walzer’, versetzte er, mit dem Geigenbogen den Ort des soeben gespielten Stückes auf seinem Notenpult bezeichnend … ‘Aber die Kinder haben kein Ohr’, sagte er, indem er wehmütig den Kopf schüttelte.” (p. 230) This scene together with the preceding one makes it plain that the poor musician does not understand the world and the world, in turn, does not understand him.

In the development of the exposition or initial frame, three occurrences stand out at this point: the narrator's change of intention, the musician's leaving the holiday crowd without any reward for his art, and the children's rejection of the musician and his music. Against the background-image of movement and counter-movement, these occurrences offer a first indication of a structural design. Basically, it is a design made up of a pattern of opposites in the form of intention and reversal or failure of intention. Essential to the character of this structure is an ironic quality which stems from the sharp contrast between the elaborate manner in which the intention is expressed and the simple way in which the intention is given up through chance of circumstances or desire. If the structural theme appears here still somewhat vague, repetitions and variations of the same theme in the concluding frame can confirm it clearly and establish its validity. The striking parallels between the initial and concluding parts of the frame make it desirable to examine the final section of the novella before turning to a discussion of the main narrative.

In a musical composition, the main section varies, transforms, and even disguises the leading theme in order to accentuate and unfold fully its different aspects. Such treatment often creates a need for a reaffirmation and hence for a conclusion which will recapitulate the major themes, possibly through an intensified or reformulated statement of the theme. The concluding frame of Der arme Spielmann has decidedly the character of such a recapitulation.⁶ It is, in fact, a reprise of the beginning: the narrator again sets out with a definite purpose in mind, but this time his intent is precisely the opposite. Originally he started out to find the common man and share his world. Now his aim is the unusual man, the poor musician, and he goes to visit him. Again, as in the beginning, the irony of fate intervenes and keeps him from carrying out his plans. He gets involved instead in a situation which in every respect is very much the opposite of what he had expected to find. Where he had hoped to meet again the bizarre and uncommon man, he now finds the common people and gets to know their cares and concerns. Jakob, the musician, is dead. During a flood that had ravaged the district where he lived, Jakob tried to help the people, went into the water to save some trivial possessions of his neighbor's and died soon after of the strain and exposure. The narrator arrives just in time for the funeral. Landlady, neighbors, school children, and even the woman Jakob loved years ago together with her husband and children join in the solemn procession; the narrator also takes part in the mourning.

Viewed in the light of the basic structure, these proceedings amount to a recapitulation of the original theme: a statement of intention followed by happenings that are an ironic reversal of that intention. However, this recapitulation not only restates the theme but even intensifies it. It does so through establishing an inverse relationship between the events of the opening and those of the concluding frame. Practically every detail of one part corresponds antithetically to a detail in the other. The mood of joy in the beginning has changed to sadness in the conclusion; the opening showed the narrator and the Spielmann struggling against the stream of people, at the end we see them as part of the people's doings; the chaos of the crowd on the way to the Brigittenau contrasts with the orderliness of the funeral procession; the people who had little regard for the poor musician now honor him, and the children no longer jeer him and his music but pay respect to him as they take their place in the procession. “Der Sarg ward erhoben, hinabgebracht und der Zug setzte sich in Bewegung. Voraus die Schuljugend mit Kreuz und Fahne, der Geistliche mit dem Kirchendiener. Unmittelbar nach dem Sarge die beiden Kinder des Fleischers und hinter ihnen das Ehepaar.” (p.265)

These conversely arranged parallels between beginning and end confirm through their recurrence the pattern of opposites and reversal as basic to the structure of the theme. They confirm further the ironic character of the theme, since all intentions expressed in the first part (and later as well) find grotesque fulfillment in the second part. The narrator, for instance, joins the people as he had desired earlier, but he joins them in their sorrow not in their joy. Jakob had all his life hoped so sincerely to serve the people through “Veredlung des Geschmacks und Herzens” and now he had indeed served them but in a trivial rather than an edifying way. Only in death he receives the approval that was denied him throughout life. Fate's derisive laughter seems to echo through this fulfillment of human wishes—a fulfillment that in form and manner makes a mockery of the original hope. When Jakob endeavored to ennoble common taste and morals, he was looked upon as a fool, but in the end, when he did little more than to save a bit of petty cash and some unimportant account books, he was regarded with a love and respect he had never known in life. On a smaller scale, the narrator too went through a similar experience. He does participate in the life of the lowly as he had wished in the beginning, but this act of participation, as it finally takes place, has little resemblance to the original idea.

The theme identified in the first part and again in the conclusion can now be traced in several variations throughout the main narrative. Here, it becomes a pervasive force defining more and more character and idea of this novella. The beginning of the initial frame stressed the narrator's desire—a vain desire—to become part of the people. An experience containing the same elements of man's wish to belong and his failure to achieve this end occurred also in Jakob's life. He tried through all means of obedience and compliance to gain the approval of his family, but step by step he was forced into the lonely life of an outcast. First, after the failure in the examination, the family ignored him; Next he had to take his meals in a boarding house, and finally he had to move out of his father's house and into a furnished room. “Man hatte mir in einer entfernten Vorstadt ein Kämmerchen gemietet, und so war ich denn ganz aus der Nähe der Angehörigen verbannt.” (p. 249) Here, just as in the beginning, we find physical occurrences reflecting inner experiences. Every change that moved Jakob physically farther away from the family represents also a greater degree of inner isolation. Not only human action but fate ultimately pronounced the separation as irrevocable when Jakob, too sick to attend his father's funeral, lost the chance to express his feeling of belonging in a last formal gesture. When the narrator eventually comes to see Jakob in the attic room, the isolation has reached an extreme. A chalk mark on the floor divides the room into two halves. The dividing line, to be sure, separates Jakob from chaos, but it also keeps him out of the world in which he has to live. Only death at last brings a reconciliation—an ironic one.

The aspect of the divided world makes the theme of wish and denial manifest. A variation of this appears in Jakob's relationship to Barbara. His bumbling attempts to win her favor and her companionship seem at first moderately successful but never attain any success greater than the kiss through the glass pane—the telling symbol of the ironic “almost”, so much in keeping with the “almost”—motif of all central experiences in frame and narrative. For a short time, it looks as if Jakob's inheritance may have a good effect on his relationship to Barbara. The opposite occurs: it becomes the undoing of that relationship. True to the theme, Jakob's yearning for companionship ends in utter loneliness. Barbara's experience follows the same pattern. Her hope to live a life more decent than the one she knew with her father has a slight chance of realization for a while. This prospect dissolves into disappointment when Jakob naively loses almost all his father had left him. Barbara's words speak of this hope and disappointment: “Ich bin gekommen um Abschied zu nehmen. Ja, erschrecken Sie nur. Ist's doch Ihr Werk. Ich muß nun hinaus unter die groben Leute, wogegen ich mich solange gesträubt habe. Aber da ist kein Mittel … ” (p. 260). We can recognize the theme of hope and disillusion again in the life of Jakob's father. All his planning and striving ended in failure marked by an irony that ultimately gave Jakob, the despised son, a place of respect among his fellow men, while the other sons, brilliant and promising at first, came to grief in disgrace and foolish venture.

These themes of hope and disillusion, of desire and non-fulfillment represent variations of the original theme of intention and reversal. Another important variation of this theme in disguised form can be seen in the repeated references to the idea of order and disorder. What relates this theme to the basic one is their common element of reversal as these examples can show. In the beginning of the novella, when the narrator describes the chaos of the people's exodus to the fairgrounds, he says: “ … es ist in Wien ein stillschweigender Bund zwischen Wagen und Menschen, nicht zu überfahren selbst in vollem Lauf; und nicht überfahren zu werden, auch ohne Aufmerksamkeit.” (p. 226) We are told here, jestingly, that the appearance of confusion and disorder is deceiving and that actually everything proceeds according to an inscrutable system. A little later, in the same jesting tone, the narrator remarks once more about the hidden forces of a mysterious condition: “ … wie denn in dieser Welt jedes noch so hartnäckige Stehenbleiben doch nur ein unvermerktes Weiterrücken ist, … ” (p. 226) A similar allusion to an order that underlies all phenomena occurs in the narrator's comment on the fine thread that connects the ‘Karrenschieber’ with the ‘Göttersöhne’ and the servant girls with the Julias, Didos and Medeas. References to the sense of order become serious, however, when Jakob describes the cause of his failure in school:

“ … Wenn ich mich recht erinnere, so wäre ich wohl imstande gewesen, allerlei zu lernen, wenn man mir nur Zeit und Ordnung gegönnt hätte. Meine Brüder sprangen wie Gemsen von Spitze zu Spitze in den Lehrgegenständen herum, ich konnte aber durchaus nichts hinter mir lassen und wenn mir ein einziges Wort fehlte, mußte ich wieder von vorne anfangen.” (p. 238)

The same exacting sense of order prevails in Jakob's arrangement of his day: one part for practicing, one to earn his bread, and one to praise God. Jakob's remark about the chalk mark on the floor gives evidence of this tendency: “Die Unordnung ist verwiesen … ” His dependence on written music rather than on the ear and his glowing discourse on the principles of harmony show what an important force this sense of order is in his life. Intention, hope, and desire fail to reach their goal in this story. In keeping with this structure, the sense of order too does not produce what one would normally expect. Adherence to order should provide a means of entering and managing life, but here—at least from the observer's point of view—it produces the opposite: estrangement from life. The feeling for order actually turns into a paralyzing force when Jakob, as a pupil, reciting a memorized verse, forgot a word and then, despite prompting, could not continue, because the formal order of the verse was broken. His failure on this occasion led to the first separation between him and his family. His sense of order in the field of music, manifest in his close observance of the score and his dedication to the principles of harmony, leads to nothing but miserable scratching. Ultimately, it is the chalk mark that most vividly expresses the separation from the world brought about by Jakob's sense of order. Here, order is indeed established but it exists only in sterile isolation.

Life, the novella shows, turns man's intention into the opposite and eventually grants an ironic attainment of the goal; it raises man's hopes and shatters them and grants him in the end a mocking fulfillment; it endows man with a sense of order and perverts it into an inimical force. The persistent recurrence of these variations of the theme reveal Grillparzer's story as a deeply pessimistic one.⁷ The pessimistic view does not relate so much to the life of the ordinary people, for the masses will reach their Brigittenau all right, the butcher will win his Barbara, and even the regular ‘Bettelmusikanten’ will get what they expect. The pessimism seems to relate much more to the unusual man.

Jakob, obviously, does not belong to the common crowd, his qualities give him distinction. He is a man without malice, living in ascetic simplicity; he is capable of love and loyalty and self-sacrifice, dedicated to the principles of order and reverent of God. Can we assume that Grillparzer wants to say that this kind of man must live estranged from the world without any sensible function? But such an assumption would only consider the virtues of the man and would overlook the fact that, according to the narrator and Jakob himself, the character of the Spielmann also includes some grave weaknesses—weaknesses that reduce what some have seen as “saintliness” and “other-worldliness” to perhaps incompetence and lack of good sense.⁸ Despite his moral will, his gentleness and childlike ways, Jakob is a bungler. The story, however, emphasizes not so much the positive or negative in Jakob's character but rather the rift between internal worth and external ineffectiveness. This portrayal of life sees eccentricity and frustration as the only harvest of qualities that should lead to a life of human dignity and, no doubt, tragic dignity. When we find the grotesque where the tragic could be expected, we must ask for the view of man and his time from which such pessimism might stem.

In the opening frame, the narrator describes the people's fair as a pilgrimage and a devotion and in this context makes some enlightening observations about the union of man and fellow man that takes place here: “—als ein Liebhaber der Menschen, sage ich, besonders wenn sie in Massen für einige Zeit der einzelnen Zwecke vergessen und sich als Teile des Ganzen fühlen, in dem zuletzt das Göttliche liegt, ja, der Gott—als einem solchen ist mir jedes Volksfest ein eigentliches Seelenfest, eine Wallfahrt, eine Andacht.” (p. 227) That union with the people, which the narrator here recognizes as a blessed state, Jakob failed to reach in every respect. His estrangement from life amounts then actually to an estrangement from the blessed state in which the divine, and, indeed, God exists. Jakob, reaching for a world of illusory order and perfection, must remain outside this union and must live in wretchedness—as the narrator sees it and as we see it. In essence, Jakob becomes the symbol of the wretchedness of an existence in which the realm of the ideal and that of the real live in total separation from each other.

To regard Jakob, however, simply as an individual out of touch with the demands of life would reduce his symbolic value severely. His sorrowful life reflects, after all, also upon the social and moral conventions of the time. The basic theme and its variations proclaim so persistently and pervasively the message of disillusion and ironic fulfillment that they cannot help but transcend individual importance. Jakob, whether taken as a “verunglückter Mensch”⁹ or as the artist type points beyond himself to the fundamental agony that arises whenever man's hopes and ideals are denied a viable form of expression. The tragic isolation that results in such situations is a subject that occurs repeatedly in Grillparzer's works. He, evidently, saw this experience in a perspective broader than that defined by individual traits. Characters such as Sappho, Hero and certainly Rudolf II show how closely personal qualities are intertwined with social and moral forces in Grillparzer's portrayal of human destiny. Beyond that they reveal, just like Der arme Spielmann, the despair of a time when life conceived in the image of idealism loses its vitality, and life guided by the precepts of finite reality cannot gain full acceptance.

Notes

1. Walter Silz, Realism and Reality (Chapel Hill, 1954).

2. Richard Brinkmann, “Franz Grillparzer: ‘Der arme Spielmann’ in Wirklichkeit und Illusion Tübingen, 1957).

3. Heinz Politzer, Franz Grillparzers “Der arme Spielmann” (Stuttgart, 1967).

4. Some such studies are: Ernst Alker, “Franz Grillparzer, Ein Kampf um Leben und Kunst” in Beiträge zur Deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (ed. Ernst Elster) No. 36, 1930. Benno von Wiese, Die Deutsche Novelle von Goethe bis Kafka, (Düsselsdorf, 1957). Walter Naumann, Grillparzer, Das Dichterische Werk, (Stuttgart, 1956). Johannes Klein, Geschichte der Deutschen Novelle, (Wiesbaden, 1954).

5. Page numbers refer to the Cotta edition by August Sauer, Grillparzers Sämmtliche Werke, (Stuttgart, 1892).

6. Ernst Alker, “Komposition und Stil von Grillparzers Novelle Der arme Spielmann” in Neophilologus 11, 1925. This study gives a factual account of structural relationships but does not go into the question of meaning.

7. Compare the conclusion of the Grillparzer study by Richard Brinkmann op. cit.

8. See Walter Silz op. cit.

9. See Johannes Klein op. cit.