Critical Evaluation

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Theodor Storm was both a lyric poet and a writer of fiction. Immensee, one of his earliest and perhaps best-known stories, is similar to his poetry in its lyricism and its poetic language.

Storm’s poetry and his early stories tend to express nostalgia for a happier world, often a world of youth. Nature is a looming presence. The individuals are simplified almost to the point of being allegorical figures. There are usually only a few characters in each story, and there is such an intense concentration on the main character that the other characters sometimes seem shadowy. Symbols are obvious yet effective. Characters do not seem to be clearly located in time and place, although the northern Germany of Storm’s homeland is the presumed backdrop. After Immensee, the reality in Storm’s narratives increased, but he never fully lost the poetic language and Romantic imagery that had first gained him his reputation.

The two lovers in Immensee seem helpless before fate. The young poet Reinhard is strangely reluctant to make direct contact with his beloved after he goes away to school. Elisabeth, a less clearly defined character, is apparently too timid to make her desires known, yet she writes very clearly and decisively in her letter to Reinhard. Even the character who displays determination, the mother, who separates the lovers because she wants Elisabeth to marry a practical, prosperous man, does not come to life. The story nevertheless has a strong appeal because it is a timeless fable of love and loss. Its few symbols recur repeatedly as motifs, gaining more intensity with each recurrence.

Most of the symbols are from nature, in the tradition of the Romantic writers, and they serve as commentary on the turmoil of the central characters. The water lily, which represents remote and unattainable beauty, stands not only for Elisabeth but also for the ideal love that Reinhard can never experience. The birds, too, have symbolic significance, as when Reinhard’s poetic linnet is replaced in Elisabeth’s home by Erich’s more mundane canary. The hunt for wild strawberries at the celebration outing suggests the young couple’s search for full communion with nature and with each other. Enjoying wild strawberries together might have suggested a happy conclusion to Elisabeth and Reinhard’s love, but they do not find the strawberries. When, after Elisabeth is married, Reinhard asks her if she will look for strawberries with him, her refusal seems to indicate that she will be faithful to her husband and that Reinhard’s offer comes too late.

The choices in Storm’s tale are simple and unshadowed by cosmic implications. No one dies; there is no major power of evil. Erich is a cheerful, practical man who is unaware of his wife’s secret grief. Even Elisabeth’s mother is pragmatic and insensitive rather than evil. The tale also concerns the conflict between the real and the ideal, between practicality and poetry. The promise of young love and the feeling of missed fulfillment are reflected in the images of nature. While Reinhard, as an old man, reminisces, the images of his present reality—his books, the room, and the house—dissolve into the more vivid images of Immensee and scenes from Reinhard’s youth. The distance between his youth and his age is underscored by the contrast between the images of enclosure and limit and the past images of vital, expansive nature. With this contrast, the story acquires the power of legend.

The themes of loss and exile—Reinhard is, in a sense, exiled from Immensee—are frequent in Storm’s work. His lyrical poetry, like this novella, re-creates images of a magical nature that reflect the emotions of those whose lives are entwined with it. In later stories, written after Storm had spent fourteen years in exile because of the Danish occupation of his home province of Schleswig, the element of realism in his work increases, and his prose acquires harsher edges. For many readers, the earlier, more nostalgic works, such as Immensee and much of the poetry, retain the stronger appeal.

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