SOURCE: “Proportion and Disproportion in Grillparzer's Der arme Spielmann,” in The Germanic Review, Vol. LIII, No. 2, Spring, 1978, pp. 41-9.

In his psychologically oriented Franz Grillparzer oder das abgründige Biedermeier, Heinz Politzer noted with reference to the position of the violin and the cross in the final scene of Der arme Spielmann: “Der Abstand, der sich zwischen der Welt des Glaubens und dem Reich der Kunst aufgetan hat, wird im Raum offenbar. Die ganze Breite des Zimmers trennt die eine von dem anderen.”¹ Not satisfied with Politzer's interpretation of “mit einer Art Symmetrie”² mentioned by the narrator in the same episode, James L. Hodge responded with an article entitled “Symmetry and Tension in Der arme Spielmann” in which he further explored the symbolic significance of what amounts to an example of skilful staging. “The mirror besides the violin, on the other hand, offers a ruthless reflection of the real. Together, the mirror and the violin express the total reality of Jakob's life—the dichotomy between human aspiration and human capability.”³ These two studies, in this one limited instance, cast light upon a principle of composition exploited by Grillparzer both in his dramas as well as in his famous narrative—a principle which, despite the recent wealth of critical material pertaining to Der arme Spielmann, has been either ignored or only alluded to briefly in passing.

As early as 1926, E. Alker underlined with mathematical exactitude and in chart form the structural symmetry inherent in the general composition of the Novelle: “Schon die beiden Rahmenstücke zeigen die streng parallele Komposition.”⁴ Since, in arriving at his scheme, Alker instinctively used the term “Szene” to describe each of the narrative's settings, he thus may be said to have been the first to point out the short story's predominantly dramatic character. Other critics such as Richard Brinkmann⁵ or Walter Silz⁶ have also dwelled upon the stage elements, but the real credit for outlining in some detail the nature of the dramatic in an epic form belongs to W. E. Yates who even goes as far as to classify Grillparzer's two creative prose works as “‘Theatrical’ Novellen.”⁷ Although he singles out the use of gestures rather than speech to express emotion, or the utilization of dialogue at climaxes “where speeches tend to be shorter and sharper, with an effect akin to stichomythia,” Yates fails to grasp—except for one brief reference to “symbolic values … brought out by visual effects such as the use of Jakob's hat or the chalk-line down the centre of his room”⁸—the full import or implications of stage-setting and spatial relationships within Der arme Spielmann.

Grillparzer once wrote: “Das ächt dramatische ist immer theatralisch, wenn auch nicht umgekehrt. Das Theater ist der Rahmen des Bildes, inner welchem die Gegenstände Anschaulichkeit und Verhältniß zu einander haben.”⁹ A drama must be seen in order to come to life.¹⁰ The Viennese stage was firmly rooted in a long tradition dating back to the Baroque theatre which usually offered a feast for the eyes. One of the most obvious visual effects turned to account by the Baroque dramatist was the distinction between high and low, the former being associated with the realm of the gods, the Divine or the ideal, while the latter reflected the less than perfect domain of everyday earthly existence. If we turn to Grillparzer's plays, we can immediately ascertain how this same, most basic spatial contrast not only suggests a major psychological concern of the dramatist but also may even be said to summarize in concrete form a tragedy's main theme: Sappho casting herself from Mount Leucas into the sea; Medea and Hero in their respective towers with the loved one in the water below; Ottokar kneeling before Rudolf;¹¹ the land of deception (earth) versus the land of truth (heaven); “der Mann in dem braunen Mantel” standing above on the cliff, looking down upon Rustan; Rudolf II in his tower near the stars set opposite his illegitimate son Don Cäsar in the streets of Prague; King Alphons in a deserted throne room, gazing up at the symbol of the duty he owes to the state; or Libussa descending from the castle of her sisters to the fallible human realm. Grillparzer's complete command of the stage and its visual effects¹² served him equally well in the composition of the various scenes which make up his “‘Theatrical’ Novelle,” Der arme Spielmann.

Before the reader catches his first glimpse of the fiddler, the narrator sets the stage with a detailed description of “das saturnalische Fest” (37), a Dionysiac folk celebration where “Der Unterschied der Stände” (37) has disappeared, where sociological distinctions such as upper and lower classes are rendered meaningless as all are caught up in the same flow of humanity, sharing a common fate. “Auch hier siegreich, ziehen endlich zwei Ströme, die alte Donau und die geschwollnere Woge des Volks sich kreuzend quer unter und über einander, die Donau ihrem alten Flußbette nach, der Strom des Volkes, der Eindämmung der Brücke entnommen, ein weiter, tosender See, sich ergiessend in Alles deckender Überschwemmung” (37). Grillparzer, who was fully aware of and put to good use the ancient, archetypal function of water as a symbol of the unconscious, employs the stream image to suggest a Dionysiac experience resulting from the surrender of the “principium individuationis” to an all-encompassing union with the whole. Although the higher flow of humanity presently remains above the inexorable flow of the river and indeed runs at right angle to its current, eventually the lower will rise to meet the upper with devastating effects for man.

Standing on the causeway, between the Augarten and the Brigittenau, Jakob opposes this general crowd movement. As an outcast he is immediately linked with the crippled musicians who, because of their handicaps, are excluded from the “pays de cocagne” (38). But the fiddler has no desire to enter, having consciously disassociated himself from the group. A paradise of indiscriminate, common human joys and pleasures holds no attraction for him so that, while his companions are ostracized because of a physical limitation beyond their conscious control, Jakob's exclusion is by free choice alone, for he remains to the very end totally unaware of the disastrous effect his music has upon others.

What really attracts the narrator, however, is the glaring sense of unbalance which characterizes this first confrontation and sets up the essential tension, proportion-disproportion, of the narrative. On the one hand, he observes the ordered world of the notes, the music stand, the immaculate although threadbare dress and the Latin phrase borrowed from Horace's satire I.1.106. The latter poem deals with the theme of greed and the unhappiness it leads to in keeping with the Horatian ideal of the middle path. The complete thought reads: “Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines,” which may be rendered in English as: “There is a proportion in things, and there are after all definite limits.” In Jakob's first utterance, Grillparzer has very skilfully chosen a proverbial statement which aptly sums up his protagonist's attitude to the conscious world and which does not represent, as Politzer maintains, “die lateinische Fassung des wienerischen ‘Ka Geld, ka Musi’.”¹³ On the other hand, the narrator cannot fail but hear the disordered world of his music which lacks normal spatial relationships: “was er spielte, schien eine unzusammenhängende Folge von Tönen ohne Zeitmass und Melodie” (41). This apparent dichotomy anticipates Jakob's unconscious dilemma. “Endlich hielt er ein, blickte, wie aus einer langen Abwesenheit zu sich gekommen, nach dem Firmament, das schon die Spuren des nahenden Abends zu zeigen anfing, darauf abwärts in seinen Hut, fand ihn leer … ” (41). All the time he was engrossed in playing, he dwelled in a remote, ideal sphere, but now he returns to reality. The glance cast towards the sky, while having a practical cause, i.e., to verify the time of day, also indicates the upper realm (the Biblical term “Firmament” is consciously chosen) to which he aspires and thus prepares for the heavenly music he alone can hear in death. But almost immediately it is set in contrast with the downward motion towards the hat, the reminder of his practical needs and his social position. As a final confirmation of the dissonance inherent in the outward appearance of this old man, he leaves working his way “mühsam durch die dem Fest zuströmende Menge in entgegengesetzter Richtung …” (41) at the time when the real harvest begins for the beggar community.

In the next scene, the usual spatial relationship of an itinerant musician surrounded by children is established, but closer examination soon discloses the disproportional: The unrecognizable notes of the waltz and the cries of the dissatisfied children. The circle is soon broken and dissolved as the boys desert the fiddler in favour of the organgrinder. The young audience turns from a subjectively oriented system to a purely objective one of mechanical music produced with mathematical precision. As Herta Krotkoff has expressed it, “Die Wahl liegt zwischen übersteigerter Individualität bei Jakob und völliger Entseelung und Uniformiertheit beim Leierkastenmann. Die Wahl der Kinder fällt auf letzteren.”¹⁴

“‘Bitte! bitte!’ rief der alte Mann, wobei er mit beiden Händen ängstlich abwehrende Bewegungen machte, ‘in den Hut! in den Hut!’” (42-43). This emotional reaction, underlined by the four exclamation marks and by the dramatic gesture, to the narrator's attempt to hand his contribution directly to the Spielmann emphasizes the latter's love of and insistence upon order. The hat has become his link with the real world and its physical demands as well as a reminder of his semi-aristocratic past and the propriety it represented. His spatial relationship to the hat upon the ground corresponds to his desire to keep a certain protective distance between himself and the material world, specifically money, which ironically will eventually destroy him. The hat and its function thus anticipate the chalk-line drawn along the floor of the attic room. Once the money has received the consecration conferred by the hat, Jakob no longer fears to touch it since it has become part of his just payment for a service rendered. As the fiddler explains to the narrator in a logically determined fashion: “Erstens … zweitens … Drittens” (43) his reasons for retiring early, it becomes evident that, as Richard Brinkmann points out, “er begegnet der Welt durch das Medium einer selbstgesetzten Ordnung.”¹⁵ He seeks to live on the basis of a standard of order as dictated by the rational, conscious side of his personality. True to the principle: “der Mensch [muß sich] in allen Dingen eine gewisse Ordnung festsetzen, sonst gerät er ins Wilde und Unaufhaltsame” (43), he has strictly slotted his daily schedule according to a carefully worked out scheme, he refuses to become party to “Tanzfreuden oder sonst unordentlichen Ergötzlichkeiten” (44), and he even views his relationship to his public in terms of maintaining a balance. In short, on the surface “Maß” or proportion would seem to dictate his life. “‘[Aber] der Abend gehört mir und meiner armen Kunst. Abends halte ich mich zu Hause, und'—dabei ward seine Rede immer leiser, Röte überzog sein Gesicht, sein Auge suchte den Boden—'da spiele ich denn aus der Einbildung, so für mich ohne Noten. Phantasieren, glaub’ ich, heißt es in den Musikbüchern'” (43). Other than the reference to Jakob's state of mind as he stopped playing and gazed at the sky, this admission, not unlike a confession of love, is really the first indication of the disproportionate aspect of his inner world paralleling the music he produces in the outer world. The involuntary, emotional reaction of blushing and the fact that he rejects the ordering discipline of printed notes herald the movement from the rational-objective to the irrational-subjective.

At this point, it would seem advisable to investigate Grillparzer's attitude towards music, one which distinguishes him from the Romantics who sought to dispense with the boundaries separating the various art forms. “Wenn man den Grundunterschied der Musik und der Dichtkunst schlagend charakterisieren wollte, so müßte man darauf aufmerksam machen, wie die Wirkung der Musik vom Sinnenreiz, vom Nervenspiel beginnt und, nachdem das Gefühl angeregt worden, höchstens in letzter Instanz an das Geistige gelangt, indes die Dichtkunst zuerst den Begriff erweckt, nur durch ihn auf das Gefühl wirkt und als äußerste Stufe der Vollendung oder der Erniedrigung erst das Sinnliche teilnehmen läßt; der Weg beider ist daher gerade der umgekehrte. Die eine Vergeistigung des Körperlichen, die andere Verkörperung des Geistigen.”¹⁶ Following the examples of the philosopher he most admired, Kant, Grillparzer sees the effect of music as being predominantly physical and as appealing through the senses directly to human feeling. Man's rational faculties are therefore not necessary in the reception of music and indeed may without detriment be totally absent in its enjoyment. “Wenn eine Violinsaite gestrichen wird, so klingen die Saiten einer daneben liegenden unberührten Geige mit. Wie, wenn ein ähnliches Nachleben unserer Nerven Ursache an der so großen Wirkung der Musik wäre? Bei mir wenigstens liegt gewiß so etwas zu Grunde, denn ich darf nur einen Ton hören, ohne noch Melodie zu unterscheiden, so gerät schon mein ganzes Wesen in eine zitternde Bewegung, deren ich nicht Herr werden kann” (Zur Musik, 121). As will be demonstrated, this is precisely the process in its simplest form in which Jakob indulges while improvising. Since for Grillparzer the result was an overwhelming physical experience over which he had no control, he learned to fear music and especially those composers such as Beethoven who flouted the classical conventions and whose compositions appeared to be on the verge of emotional anarchy or chaos. But perhaps Grillparzer's ambivalent attitude towards music has best been captured in his designation of “dunkle Gefühle” as “das eigentliche Gebiet der Musik. Hierin muß ihr die Poesie nachstehen. Wo Worte nicht mehr hinreichen, sprechen die Töne. Was Gestalten nicht auszudrücken vermögen, malt ein Laut. Die sprachlose Sehnsucht; das schweigende Verlangen; der Liebe Wünsche, die Wehmut, die einen Gegenstand sucht und zittert, ihn zu finden in sich selbst; der Glaube, der sich aufschwingt; das Gebet, das lallt und stammelt: alles was höher geht und tiefer als Worte gehen können, das gehört der Musik an” (Zur Musik, 128). Words, being logical constructs by which the mind operates and through which it seeks to impose a rational structure upon a world which is not necessarily rational, have reached the outermost limit of the expressible, and to cross that frontier into the realm of the irrational, one must have recourse to music.

Today, with the aid of psychology, one could easily interpret “dunkle Gefühle” as symbolic representations of the life urge. Indeed Grillparzer seems to have been very much aware of the sexual side of music, having once referred to the relationship between major and minor in terms of male-female (Zur Musik, 118) and to “die niedern Sinne, so süß sie auch sein mögen” (Zur Musik, 127) as not being a suitable basis for a free and beautiful art. It is also striking how closely his view of music approximates that of Nietzsche as expressed in Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geist der Musik. Almost like an echo one reads: “die Musik selbst, in ihrer völligen Unumschränktheit, [braucht] das Bild und den Begriff nicht, sondern [erträgt] ihn nur neben sich … die Sprache [kann], als Organ und Symbol der Erscheinungen, nie und nirgends das tiefste Innere der Musik nach Außen kehren.”¹⁷ In lyrical music Nietzsche saw the glorification and the realization of the Greek god Dionysius, for in music the individual forgets and surrenders himself completely to a vision of universal union by which he becomes one with the all: “Unter dem Zauber des Dionysischen schließt sich nicht nur der Bund zwischen Mensch und Mensch wieder zusammen: auch die entfremdete, feindliche oder unterjochte Natur feiert wieder ihr Versöhnungsfest mit ihrem verlorenen Sohne, dem Menschen. … Singend und tanzend äußert sich der Mensch als Mitglied einer höheren Gemeinschaft.”¹⁸ In the words of Heinz Politzer, “Im übrigen fürchtete [Grillparzer], sich in der Welt der Töne zu verlieren. 1828 nannte er Paganini einen Selbstmörder.”¹⁹ Hence it may be assumed that as a therapeutic exercise Grillparzer has portrayed in the “Spielmann” what could conceivably have happened to him.

While the narrator listens below in the Gärtnergasse or later as he stands in the fiddler's room, he endeavours to discover the principle behind the performance. “Ein leiser, aber bestimmt gegriffener Ton schwoll bis zur Heftigkeit, senkte sich, verklang, um gleich darauf wieder bis zum lautesten Gellen empor zu steigen, und zwar immer derselbe Ton mit einer Art genußreichem Daraufberuhen wiederholt. Endlich kam ein Intervall. Es war die Quarte. Hatte der Spieler sich vorher an dem Klange des einzelnen Tones geweidet, so war nun das gleichsam wollüstige Schmecken dieses harmonischen Verhältnisses noch ungleich fühlbarer” (46-47). The sensually flavoured language which Grillparzer uses each time he describes the old man playing alone in his room points to music, or religion for that matter, as sublimations of the life instinct. Music has therefore become a means to express Jakob's frustrated vital urges,²⁰ an escape into a purely subjective world.²¹ Because of a strict puritanical upbringing, he consciously aspires to the level of an Apollonian individual: “der Mensch [muß sich] in allen Dingen eine gewisse Ordnung festsetzen, sonst gerät er ins Wilde und Unaufhaltsame” (43), while unconsciously, in the Dionysiac experience of music, he can give free rein to the irrational side of his psyche. “Statt nun in einem Musikstücke nach Sinn und Rhythmus zu betonen, hob er heraus, verlängerte er die dem Gehör wohltuenden Noten und Intervalle, ja nahm keinen Anstand sie willkürlich zu wiederholen, wobei sein Gesicht oft geradezu den Ausdruck der Verzückung annahm” (48-49). An indulgence in excess, his playing rejects the accepted proportions and imposes its own according to a very basic pleasure principle: “Der Alte genoß, indem er spielte” (48). The result of this complete lack of discipline normally expected, indeed demanded in music, is “Verzückung,” self-abandonment to an emotionalism having nothing to do with “Verstand” (Kant's designation adhered to by Grillparzer, Zur Musik, 127). Whereas the Apollonian creates an illusion of rationality which enables man to live despite the horror of the abyss, the Dionysiac, the basis of music, according to Nietzsche, brings man back to his primordial, irrational roots.

Bearing in mind the stress created by proportion versus disproportion in the mind of the reader (Jakob is totally unaware of this tension, which is reflected in the narrator, in this instance the reader's representative), we would have to reject as misleading Walter Silz' description of the old man as an example of “selflessness, which comes close to saintliness,”²² for his enjoyment of music rests upon a purely selfish pleasure principle. It would be equally incorrect to refer to Jakob's life as “das Tragische der Innerlichkeit,”²³ for where there is no conscious conflict, there can be no tragedy. Also J. P. Stern's comment that “Grillparzer of course possessed none of Thomas Mann's up-to-date psychological skill and interest being concerned with effects rather than causes”²⁴ can be easily countered by reference to Politzer's study Franz Grillparzer oder das abgründige Biedermeier which demonstrates how “der frühe Seelenforscher Grillparzer,”²⁵ in addition to anticipating some of Mann's preoccupations (Politzer compares Sappho and Tonio Kröger), proves himself a match for the novelist, especially in his penetrating analysis of Otto von Meran.²⁶ And finally, something should be said about a persistent tendency in secondary literature to refer to Jakob's inner world as the realization of an unqualified ideal. For example, “Das Ideale und das Reale trennen sich, und das Ideale ist nur noch im Zurückziehen auf den esoterischen Bereich der Innerlichkeit zu bewahren.”²⁷ If this is indeed the case, then we should have to alter radically our understanding of the ideal which since the time of Plato has stood for an intellectual realm free from the demands of the body with its, to use Grillparzer's phrase, “niedern Sinne, so süß sie auch sein mögen” (Zur Musik, 127). Surely, Grillparzer, by presenting his protagonist as sensually indulging in an orgy of sound, has seriously called this “Ideale der Innerlichkeit” into question by exposing “das Reale der Innerlichkeit.”

If, however, we continue to accept with reservation the problematic distinction “ideal”-“real,” then we must further come to terms with the setting and its symbolic value, because the location of Jakob's room renders a life of seclusion dedicated to art even more questionable. The street, the “Gärtnergasse” which “[lief] gegen das freie Feld hinaus” (46), is linked by its very name with down-to-earth needs and with people who earn their living from the soil. It is therefore significant that the first person the narrator encounters in the “Gärtnergasse” during his initial attempt to find Jakob's whereabouts is a man heavily laden with garden vegetables, incarnating the attitude of the everyday world down below in the street: “Kratzt der Alte einmal wieder … und stört die ordentlichen Leute in ihrer Nachtruhe” (46). Again, a spatial relationship sets up a discordant note between a very tangible, crude reality and aspirations towards a subjectively determined ideal.

The house Jakob lives in consists of a mere two stories and hence, from the very beginning, he is not that far removed from the ground level. As one might expect by now, the description of the attic room depends for its effect upon proportion-disproportion, order-disorder. The narrator observes “ein schmutziges, widerlich verstörtes Bette, von allen Zutaten der Unordentlichkeit umgeben,” juxtaposed with “eine zweite Lagerstätte, dürftig, aber reinlich, und höchst sorgfältig gebettet und bedeckt” (48). A chalk-line which significantly the fiddler drew himself provides the border between these two contrasting realms. “Die Mitte des Zimmers von Wand zu Wand war am Boden mit einem dicken Kreidenstriche bezeichnet, und man kann sich kaum einen grelleren Abstich von Schmutz und Reinlichkeit denken, als diesseits und jenseits der gezogenen Linie, dieses Aequators einer Welt im kleinen, herrschte” (48). The very use of the prepositions “diesseits” and “jenseits” is highly suggestive of the real and the ideal living in a state of forced co-existence, and one might wonder why Grillparzer introduced the “Handwerksgesellen” into the immediate proximity of the fiddler's world. The “Spielmann” lives solely for his music, an ideal vision of life which, although the reader may sympathize with it, has little to do with reality. The Biedermeier ethos was losing its faith in the absolute glorification of transcendental values, an article of faith proclaimed by both Classicism and Romanticism. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the real with its elementary demands was gradually winning the upper hand and would triumph briefly in Naturalism where the ideal would be denied completely as illusionary and incapable of filling an empty stomach. The workmen thus embody the unavoidable aspects of human existence which could no longer be ignored. This victory of the real over the ideal is intimated in Grillparzer's dramas as well, in Sappho's suicide, in the ascendency of the self-oriented spirit of Klesel over Rudolf II, in the defeat suffered by duty at the hands of sex in Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen and Die Jüdin von Toledo, or in the transition from the matriarchial to the patriarchial state in Libussa.

As already noted, even the sacred domain of “deutsche Innerlichkeit” has been rendered suspect by its self-indulgent, disproportionate nature and its Dionysiac origin. In order to break the trance into which Jakob has retired, the narrator must finally resort to intentionally dropping his hat, the symbol of reality and social status. “Der alte Mann fuhr zusammen, seine Knie zitterten, kaum konnte er die zum Boden gesenkte Violine halten” (49). As the narrator's description indicates, the fiddler is violently forced out of a dream world, where individuality and self-control were dissolved, back into an awareness of self: “zu sich selbst kommend” (49). Having regained presence of mind, Jakob remarks in reference to the physical disorder of the other half of the room: “Die Unordnung ist verwiesen” (49), an ironic statement when one bears in mind the preceding expression of his “dunkle Gefühle” in music. The irony is compounded when he notes further: “[Die Unordnung] nimmt ihren Rückzug durch die Türe, wenn sie auch derzeit noch nicht ganz über die Schwelle ist” (49). Disorder has already invaded and made its presence felt both in the conscious (the attic room) and in the unconscious (music) realm. Even though he may try to deny the existence of the labourers by drawing his chalk-line, the fact still remains that he is the only one to honour this convention: “'Und respektieren diese Ihre Bezeichnung?‘—'Sie nicht, aber ich'” (49) Even if man attempts to disavow life, the latter will not be denied and will triumphantly reassert itself and destroy man if necessary. “Nur die Türe ist gemeinschaftlich” (49). Both those who live the real and those who search for the ideal must enter by the same door of life. The two spheres cannot exist on a separate level and are both part of the same spatial plane. Whereas the workmen have no understanding of and hence show no respect for art, the fiddler must acknowledge the workers’ existence even though he would prefer to ignore it altogether. Life states its claim, one that cannot be avoided. This desire to elude the ugly side of the real finds a parallel in Jakob's playing of the masters: because his conscientiousness will not permit him to dispense with the dissonances completely, he passes over them as quickly as possible while, in keeping with the principle of his improvisation, he dwells upon consonance.

Before Jakob relates his life story, another ritual must be performed as he takes the narrator's hat and places it upon the bed. As a gesture of politeness it points again to his aristocratic heritage, a social high point he once enjoyed and which will be confirmed by his autobiography. Furthermore, because of the hat's association with reality, it seems singularly appropriate that attention be drawn to it before he commences his tale. The surface qualities we have come to associate with the fiddler such as discipline, honesty, love of order etc., are evident in his narrative except for those passages which deal with music. “Wenn ich abends im Zwielicht die Violine ergriff, um mich nach meiner Art ohne Noten zu vergnügen, nahmen sie mir das Instrument und sagten, das verdirbt die Applikatur” (51). Even as a child, music represented the only brief release from the dictates of extreme discipline and order. His reintroduction to music many years later is skillfully staged, as usual with symbolic relationships in mind. Ostracized to “einem Hinterstübchen, das in den Nachbars-Hof hinausging” (53), that is to say, completely isolated without any vestige of social intercourse, he hears down below in the courtyard his song: “Es war so einfach, so rührend, und hatte den Nachdruck so auf der rechten Stelle, daß man die Worte gar nicht zu hören brauchte. Wie ich denn überhaupt glaube, die Worte verderben die Musik” (54). In Grillparzer's view, words constitute “Begriffe,” rational concepts (and as such are part of the Apollonian tendency of the mind to systematize the world into a rational order), whereas music, dependent upon the senses and the nerves, appeals directly to man's feelings. The song, finding a strong resonance within Jakob's unconscious self, provides the means to express in a sublimated form the Dionysiac current long suppressed within. Interestingly enough, Nietzsche saw in the “Volkslied” “das perpetuum vestigium einer Vereinigung des Appollinischen und des Dionysischen” where “[die Melodie] ist auch das bei weitem wichtigere und nothwendigere [than the text] in der naiven Schätzung des Volkes.”²⁸ Spatially, the song is associated with the courtyard and consequently with the people and the Dionysiac basis of life. The episode leads, of course, to the rediscovery of the violin. Reminiscent of the emotional upheaval Grillparzer underwent at the striking of a mere note: “… ich darf nur einen Ton hören, ohne noch Melodie zu unterscheiden, so gerät mein ganzes Wesen in eine zitternde Bewegung, deren ich nicht Herr werden kann” (Zur Musik, 121), Jakob's playing of a single note brings about a total abandon to emotional intoxication and its concomitant denial of “Maß.” “Der Ton drang in mein Inneres hinein und aus dem Innern wieder heraus. Die Luft um mich war wie geschwängert mit Trunkenheit. Das Lied unten im Hofe und die Töne von meinen Fingern an mein Ohr … (54). Upper and lower are united in diction most suggestive of a sublimated sexual experience. As a further confirmation of the scene's erotic content, he “küßte die Violine und drückte sie an [sein] Herz und spielte wieder und fort” (55).²⁹

“Das Lied im Hofe—es war eine Weibsperson, die sang—tönte derweile unausgesetzt” (55). It is of some importance to note that the song precedes the woman. Barbara is only desirable indirectly as the incarnation or medium through which the song is expressed; her incidental nature is reflected in the dashes. The fiddler's highly disciplined, prudish upbringing would never allow him to view a “Weibsperson” (both the word choice and the sentence structure suggest a conscious effort to place some distance between himself and the opposite sex) directly as a sexually desirable object, although Barbara is definitely connected spatially with the song and the lower courtyard. The “Lied” and music in general constitute a socially, consciously acceptable substitute, a symbolic representation of a repressed sexual drive, which perhaps nowhere becomes more transparent than in Jakob's description of harmony reaching a climax with “die Wunder der Bindung und Umkehrung, wodurch auch die Sekunde zur Gnade gelangt in den Schoß des Wohlklangs” (55). For Jakob, adding words to a song corresponds to “wie die Kinder Gottes sich verbanden mit den Töchtern der Erde” (55), a lowering of the divine origin of the music. But religion, like music, has its roots deeply embedded in the unconscious realm of the life instinct, and for one of the daughters of the earth, Barbara, who has a firm grasp on reality, the words are significantly more important than the music.

Barbara, solely as the bearer of the song, now becomes the object of Jakob's quest, one which is characterized frequently by excess. At their first confrontation, he describes the melody and in so doing renders a spatial image of his own life and indirectly of the fate of the ideal in the “Vormärz.” The melody “steigt gleich anfangs in die Höhe” (Jakob's search for the higher realm), “kehrt dann in sein Inwendiges zurück” (unable to find what he desires in the real world, he withdraws into himself) “und hört ganz leise auf” (—an intimation of his death) (59). As Barbara sings the song, “wobei sie das Haupt duckte, so schön, so lieblich” (59), she is physically transformed in the eyes of the fiddler into a concrete representation of the beauty she reproduces, and he grasps her hand to kiss it, an unheard-of, immoderate act in terms of his past life, but comparable to the passionate embrace of his violin. Because of Barbara's status as the mere material link with the immaterial and because of Jakob's psychological makeup, their relationship is based from the very beginning upon a misunderstanding of which neither is aware. By definition alone one cannot be conscious of the unconscious and hence I feel that Politzer goes too far when he maintains: “Was jedoch Barbara anlangt, so betrügt Jakob sie mit ihrem Lied, noch ehe er ihrer ansichtig geworden ist.”³⁰ If it is a case of deception, it is not a conscious one.

After approximately three weeks, Jakob, in his desperation to have the notes of the song, resolves to visit the grocer's shop, and, in order to avoid suspicion, leaves his hat at home. Whereas the violin may be said to stand for the ideal aspirations of the protagonist, the hat leitmotif reflects the demands of the real world, and therefore it is also fitting that Jakob, in leaving the seclusion of his room to descend to the street in search of his ideal, leaves the hat behind. He is like a fish out of water. On a sociological level, it is indicative and prophetic of social degradation as noted by Barbara's father: “Ein Herr aus der Kanzlei? rief er, im Dunkeln, ohne Hut?” (62), and the fall is quick to assert itself. Jakob is obliged to leave home and Barbara is refused permission to enter the chancellery. Eventually, the fiddler's social decline is complete as he becomes a salesman in the store. This whole episode conducted on the ground level underlines his unsuccessful attempt to find some security, warmth and understanding in the day-to-day world of the shop, but events continue to prove that he remains singularly unfitted for this realm where “Von Musik oder Gesang … nie die Rede [war]” (68) and where profit, not politeness, counts.

One of the most memorable sequences in the Novelle is the series of events leading up to the kiss through the glass door. Coming upon the unsuspecting Barbara as she sings the song, Jakob is overcome by a self-induced vision triggered by the music: “Sie aber zwitscherte wie eine Grasmücke, die am Bache das Hälslein wäscht und das Köpfchen herumwirft und die Federn sträubt und wieder glättet mit dem Schnäblein” (68). Associating himself with the image, the fiddler becomes the hunter “auf grünen Wiesen” (68), stalking his prey. It would seem to me that sexual overtones are definitely present in this bird fantasy, although Politzer characterizes it as a “Vision, in der alles Erotische fehlt.”³¹ It is after all a bathing bird and one may recall that Leda, when she was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan, was bathing.³² Also, to represent the loved one as a bird which the male hunter wishes to capture and put in a cage as his sole property is a well-known literary motif. In Jakob's mind the bird becomes synonymous with the music; the song, and for that matter the bird image in general as it appears in symbolic form in a dream sequence, are sublimations of the life instinct. Hence, he internalizes the whole experience so that “das Lied nicht mehr von außen, daß es aus mir herauszutönen schien, ein Gesang der Seelen” (68-69). When he seizes Barbara's waist, his imagination is merely taking possession of the song which is already part of him. The episode underlines his ability to disregard external reality, its proportions and its order at will and fulfils in Grillparzer's view the basic function of music: “die Musik [will] das Sinnliche vergeistigen” (Zur Musik, 115). The slap in the face only serves to intensify the pleasure: “Die Lichter tanzten mir vor den Augen.—Aber es waren Himmelslichter. Wie Sonne, Mond und Sterne; wie die Engelein, die Versteckens spielen und dazu singen. Ich hatte Erscheinungen, ich war verzückt” (69). This quasi-religious ecstasy is clearly a poetic representation of a sublimated erotic experience. In answer to Barbara's kiss offered both out of remorse and love, Jakob replies with a passionate kiss planted on the pane of glass which separates them. The staging is especially worthy of note: Barbara on one side of the door resisting “mit aller Macht” (69) and the fiddler on the other trying unsuccessfully to force it open. The image proves that Barbara is physically stronger, that Jakob will be unable to win the grocer's daughter at her level, that of the real world where the incident takes place, and that the fiddler is capable of passion which normally, however, has been obliged to find an outlet in the realm of subjective music. The kiss offered through the glass suggests his ineffectiveness in life and the resultant inappropriateness of their possible union. He must continue to deny his sexual drive any direct expression as if life were compelling him to lead an existence of self-denial, of half-measures. Since his childhood upbringing failed to develop or encourage the vitality necessary for survival, a mere pane of glass imposes an insurmountable obstacle. Again a hat, this time the grocer's (i.e., crass reality), which Jakob takes in his confusion by mistake, is utilized by Grillparzer as a concrete indication of a total loss of balance in his state of emotional upheaval on the ground floor.

The unsuitability of Jakob's presence in the lower realm is fully confirmed by the loss of his legacy through extreme naivety, his forced expulsion from the grocery store (paralleling his forced entry, on both occasions at the hands of Barbara's father) and his resigned, almost contented return to his upper room and its seclusion which is broken by Barbara's first and last visit. Here the up-down distinction is crucial to our interpretation. Having returned Jakob's belongings and offered her advice, Barbara descends the steps towards the street: “Wie ich aber die erste Stufe hinabstieg, sprach sie von unten herauf: ‘Bleiben Sie!’ und ging die Treppe vollends hinab und zum Tore hinaus” (57). The fact that she was able for a few brief minutes to climb up to Jakob's level intimates the drive within her towards a more refined, more ideal existence, but the distance that finally separates them, not unlike the glass pane, proves unbridgeable. Barbara's awareness of Jakob's inability to survive down below, where a life of suffering and deception would be inevitable, Grillparzer has succinctly captured in her command “Bleiben Sie!” Out of sheer financial necessity, she must go down “unter die groben Leute” and remain there (75), and it seems especially ironic if not tragic that she should be required to marry of all people a butcher. What could be more down-to-earth than a man who deals in animal flesh?

In the recounting of the flood which struck the Brigittenau with devastating effects, the narrator emphasizes the fiddler's relative security in his upper sphere. “Für des alten Mannes Leben schien nichts zu besorgen, wohnte er doch hoch oben am Dache, indes unter den Bewohnern der Erdgeschosse sich der Tod seine nur zu häufigen Opfer ausersehen hatte” (78). This same spatial distinction is also made by the “Gärtnerin”: “Die ehrliche Seele saß da oben sicher in seiner Kammer” (79). If Jakob had adhered to Barbara's warning and had remained in the safety of his room, he would have been unharmed, but hearing the cries of drowning children, he descended and was destroyed. However, as Benno von Wiese has pointed out,³³ Grillparzer does not permit his protagonist the luxury of an heroic end. His return into the water, which then reached his chest, to save “Steuerbücher und die paar Gulden Papiergeld im Wandschrank” (79), not the rescue of the children, caused his death. Because money dictated Barbara's decision to go down “unter die groben Leute” and because it represented the sole reason why the fiddler ever left the safety of his room to earn a living by educating the people down below (with the exception of the final descent which was motivated by compassion), Jakob may be seen as a victim of the growing materialism of the times which Grillparzer deplored. However, his “Phantasie” (79) again came to his aid as he approached the final escape. “Denn er musizierte in einem fort, mit der Stimme nämlich, und schlug den Takt und gab Lektionen” (79). If we bear in mind the erotic undercurrent in Jakob's music as indicated by the narrator's description of his playing and by the fiddler's own explanation of the miracle of harmony, we come to realize that love and music are inextricably intertwined in a somewhat pathetic “Liebestod.” “[Er] richtete sich plötzlich im Bette auf, wendete Kopf und Ohr seitwärts, als ob er in der Entfernung etwas gar Schönes hörte, lächelte, sank zurück und war tot” (79). There is created a strong suggestion in the spatial relationship implied in “Entfernung”—that which is just out of one's reach—of an ideal realm of celestial music. A smile upon his face, he sank back, submitting willingly to death, or in terms of his song he “hört[e] ganz leise auf” (59). The peace, calm, and confidence produced by his subjective illusion seems strangely out of proportion with the horror and concern of those who managed to survive the flood and who, in administering to the old man, “mehr dabei litten, als er selbst” (79).

To what conclusion then does an investigation of spatial relationships or proportion and disproportion in Der arme Spielmann lead? In a revealing analysis of the endings of Grillparzer's dramas, Herbert Seidler has observed: “Grillparzer gestaltet immer wieder den Widerspruch zwischen der Unvollkommenheit und Brüchigkeit der menschlich-geschichtlichen Welt und der göttlichen Seinsordnung in der Gesamtschöpfung. Diese göttliche Seinsordnung führt, weil sie die irdische überwölbt, doch zu einer letzten Geschlossenheit und Sinngebung. In dieser Auffassung wirkt noch die barock-christliche Weltan-schauung bei Grillparzer weiter. Zugleich aber erlebt und erkennt Grillparzer als Mensch des beginnenden positivistischen Zeitalters die langsam sich enthüllende Ungeborgenheit des modernen Menschen, dem jene überwölbende und sinnschließende göttliche Weltordnung fragwürdig wird und entschwindet.”³⁴ Of course, the metaphysical superstructure can also be perceived in this “Novelle”: the fiddler plays God, the “Gärtnerin,” a simple woman from the people, is convinced that after Jakob's death he “musiziert jetzt mit den lieben Engeln” (79), and the description of Jakob's last moments as he responds to a celestial music and wills his removal to its source finds a parallel in Rudolf's departure in Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg, a drama in which Rudolf adheres to the clear distinction between the two realms as described by Seidler. Is the issue merely left open, as M.W. Swales would have us believe? “It is because of the narrator's determination to state the intellectual problem [ideal versus real] and to have it as something open that the story itself is at all possible.”³⁵ Grillparzer once wrote in his diary, “Die Novelle ist das Herabneigen der Poesie zur Prosa.”³⁶ Art, the goddess whom Grillparzer worshipped and who to him was synonymous with the poetic drama, always enabled the dramatist to bridge the abyss by means of poetic apotheosis, perhaps best exemplified in Sappho's suicide. The Novelle, by Grillparzer's own definition more firmly anchored in the real, provided him with the opportunity to demonstrate reluctantly the ultimate triumph of life over the ideal.³⁷ Spatially, this unavoidable recognition is rendered in concrete, visible form by Jakob's position on the causeway, the location of his upper room with its chalk-line, which reality in the form of the workmen refuses to respect, and in the preponderant role of money in the lower realm, which Jakob, despite his subjective defence and escape mechanism, cannot ignore and which ultimately brings about his death. But above all, Grillparzer's amazingly accurate and perceptive analysis of “dunkle Gefühle” has both called the ideal into question and finally exposed it as a sublimation of a disproportionate sexual drive. “Apollo will die Einzelwesen gerade dadurch zur Ruhe bringen, daß er Grenzlinien zwischen ihnen zieht und daß er immer wieder an diese als an die heiligsten Weltgesetze mit seinen Forderungen der Selbsterkenntnis und des Maßes erinnert”;³⁸ nevertheless, Dionysius, the god of life, demands and inevitably receives his due devotion. Through the medium of music, Jakob unconsciously joins the crowd at the beginning of the frame-narrative: “Menschen … wenn sie in Massen für einige Zeit der einzelnen Zwecke vergessen und sich als Teile des Ganzen fühlen, in dem denn doch zuletzt das Göttliche liegt” (39), an anticipation of Nietzsche's statement: “Unter dem Zauber des Dionysischen schließt sich nicht nur der Bund zwischen Mensch und Mensch wieder zusammen: auch die entfremdete, feindliche oder unterjochte Natur feiert wieder ihr Versöhnungsfest mit ihrem verlorenen Sohn, dem Menschen. … Singend und tanzend äußert sich der Mensch als Mitglied einer höheren Gemeinsamkeit.”³⁹

Notes

1. Heinz Politzer, Franz Grillparzer oder das abgründige Biedermeier (Wien, München, Zürich, 1972), p. 388.

2. Franz Grillparzer, Der arme Spielmann, Sämtliche Werke. Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. by August Sauer und Reinhold Backmann, 1. Abteilung, 13. Band (Vienna, 1909ff.), p. 81. All subsequent references to, and quotations from the text of Der arme Spielmann are taken from this edition. In quotations, italicized words or phrases are my own, unless otherwise indicated. I should like to express my gratitude to the Advisory Research Committee, Queen's University, for having enabled me to continue my research in Vienna in the summer of 1976.

3. James L. Hodge, “Symmetry and Tension in Der arme Spielmann,” The German Quarterly, 47, no. 2 (1974), 263.

4. E. Alker, “Komposition und Stil von Grillparzers Novelle Der arme Spielmann,” Neophilologus, 11 (1926), 19.

5. Richard Brinkmann, Wirklichkeit und Illusion (Tübingen, 1966), p. 92: “In der Tat, nur ein Dramatiker vom Format und der künstlerischen Erfahrung Grillparzers kann die Gestalten einer Erzählung in knappen Gesprächen so lebendig und leibhaft vor uns hinstellen.”

6. Walter Silz, Realism and Reality (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1965), p. 68. “Grillparzer's procedure is, moreover, essentially similar to that of the ‘analytic’ drama: he starts in just before the final catastrophe and, by progressively unrolling a past action while advancing a present one, he gives to his simple tale an uncommon depth and tension.

7. W.E. Yates, Grillparzer. A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 194.

8. Yates, p. 195.

9. Franz Grillparzer, Sämtliche Werke, 2. Abteilung, 10. Bd. Tagebücher und literarische Skizzenhefte, no. 3262.

10. Politzer, p. 287: “[Grillparzer] war, schließlich und endlich, zeit seines Lebens und trotz seiner Musikalität ein Augenmensch gewesen, ein Dramatiker in jenem ursprünglichen Sinn des Griechischen, in dem das Theater das Geschaute schlechthin bedeutet.”

11. Politzer, p. 174, explains the tragedy of Ottokar in terms of “ein überaus eindrucksvolles visuelles Symbol … das Knien Ottokars.” Cf. also H. Seidler, “Prunkreden in Grillparzers Dramen Studien zu Grillparzer und Stifter (Wien, Köln, Graz, 1970), p. 113: “Ottokars Knien vor Rudolf, vom ganzen Lager am Schluß des dritten Aufzugs gesehen, entscheidet den weitern Handlungsverlauf.”

12. Politzer, p. 205, has demonstrated convincingly how in Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn and Die Ahnfrau Grillparzer uses the staging to reflect the gradual penetration into the inner psyche of the protagonists. “Je tiefer der Blick des Dichters das Innere der Figuren durchdringt, desto dichter schließen sich die Kulissen um die Gestalten.”

13. Politzer, p. 379.

14. Herta Krotkoff, “Über den Rahmen in Franz Grillparzers Novelle Der arme Spielmann,” Modern Language Notes, 85 (1970), p. 361.

15. Brinkmann, p. 113.

16. Franz Grillparzer, Sämtliche Werke, 5. Ausgabe in 20 Bänden, ed. by August Sauer (Stuttgart, n.d.), Bd. 15, Zur Musik, p. 113. All Grillparzer's theoretical statements concerning music will be drawn from this edition.

17. Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Berlin, New York, 1972), 3. Abteilung, Bd. 1, p. 47.

18. Nietzsche, pp. 25-26.

19. Politzer, p. 14.

20. Silz, p. 74. “No one can say—certainly Grillparzer himself could not have said—how much of the spiritual force that produced his poetic works was a compensation for this deep-seated sense of failure in his sexual life.”

21. Brinkmann, pp. 113-114. “Und was ist die ganz willkürliche Weise seines Spiels, das ‘höllische Konzert’ seines Phantasierens, in dessen ‘Tollheit’ doch eine ‘Methode’ zu erkennen ist, was ist das anderes als ein Sichzurückziehen, ein Sicheinkapseln in ein selbstgebautes Refugium, in die höchstpersönliche Ordnung einer selbstkonstruierten Welt.” See also Benno von Wiese, Die deutsche Novelle von Goethe bis Kafka (Düsseldorf, 1964), Bd. 1, p. 145: “Diese Musik ist vollendeter Solipsismus.”

22. Silz, p. 75.

23. Hermann Pongs, Das Bild in der Dichtung (Marburg, 1963), 2. Bd., p. 222.

24. J.P. Stern, “Beyond the Common Indication,” J.P.S., Reinterpretations (London, 1964), p. 71.

25. Politzer, p. 205.

26. Politzer, pp. 200-201. “Mit erstaunlicher Meisterschaft hat Grillparzer hier [Otto von Meran] die tendenziöse Doppelnatur einer psychosomatischen Krankheit gezeichnet: Leib und Seele verschränken sich im Übel; Innen und Außen verwirrt sich, so daß die Ursache zur Wirkung und das Symptom zum Erreger wird.”

27. Brinkmann, p. 143.

28. Nietzsche, p. 44.

29. Politzer, p. 381. “All seine zurückgestaute Erotik bricht hier durch und vereinigt ihn mit seinem Instrument, wie er sich nie mit Barbara wird vereinigen können.”

30. Politzer, p. 381.

31. Politzer, p. 378.

32. Grillparzer also used a bathing scene described by Eucharis to suggest Melitta's “Frühlingserwachen” in Sappho.

33. von Wiese, p. 147.

34. H. Seidler, “Die Schlüsse in den Dramen Franz Grillparzers,” Studien zu Grillparzer und Stifter (Wien, Köln, Graz, 1970), p. 137.

35. M.W. Swales, “The Narrative Perspective in Grillparzer's Der arme Spielmann,” German Life and Letters, 20 (1966-1967), 116.

36. Franz Grillparzer, Sämtliche Werke, 2. Abteilung, 10. Bd., Tagebücher und literarische Skizzenhefte, no. 3281.

37. Walter Naumann, Grillparzer. Das dichterische Werk (Stuttgart, n.d.), p. 26. “Und doch ist das Leben, das was ist, das höchste Gericht. … Nicht weil Grillparzer objektiv von sich so klein denkt, im Verhältnis zu andern, sondern weil das Leben, das Mögliche, so viel größer ist, und er es nicht erfüllt, sieht er sich als den armen Spielmann.”

38. Nietzsche, p. 66.

39. Nietzsche, pp. 25-26. Hence I cannot agree with Robert M. Browning's view: “Through license and disorder the masses return to oneness, the Spielmann through order.” “Language and the Fall from Grace in Grillparzer's Spielmann,” Seminar, XII, No. 4, 1976, p. 221. Browning fails to take into account the “disorder and license” of Jakob's improvisations.