[In the following excerpt, Holst uses a fairy tale retold in Muinchhausen to discuss Immermann's relation to German Romanticism.]

For almost half a century Karl Immermann was threatened by near obscurity or at best, remembered as the author of Oberhof, a fragment taken capriciously from the torso of his greatest novel and published separately as an impressive depiction of village life in the early nineteenth century. But of late this impressive literary and intellectual personality from the German Restoration period has been accorded renewed critical attention. Of the more recent endeavors, two works are particularly outstanding: Manfred Windfuhr's monograph and Benno von Wiese's life which constitutes the introductory volume of his critical edition of the works of Immermann.

One might still agree with Boxberger's devastating judgment that our great respect is due "mehr dem Streben als den Leistungen des Mannes." This statement, however, applies at best to Immermann's many ultimately unsuccessful dramatic and lyrical experiments. Quite another matter are his novels: the comprehensive depiction of his generation, Die Epigonen, and the far ranging satire, Manchhausen. To be sure, the social and political climate which Immermann described, was antagonistic toward serious literary production. It is not this fact, however, that lifts the two novels out of the realm of the ordinary, but rather the incisive way in which Immermann perceives and depicts the times and mores of the Epigonenzeit. This permits us to call the above-mentioned works genuine achievements of a high order. Especially impressive is Immermann's struggle for a new method of presentation through which he attempted to express a more realistic world view and thereby to divorce himself from the intellectual and literary heritage both of Goethe and the Romantics. A comparison of two interpolated fairy tales may help to establish Immermann's position vis a vis Romanticism.

In each of Immermann's novels there is an interpolated fairy tale. In the Epigonen, it is the entirely unanticipated "Mondscheinmarchen." This is a narrative in itself, but relative to the novel as a whole it lacks the expected function of integration and completion. Basically it is no more than a poetically embellished cosmogony, a theme encountered repeatedly in Immermann's works; and it shows little of his attitude toward Romanticism. This posture can be determined much more clearly from his later fairy tale "Die Wunder im Spessart" in the fifth book of Mdnchhausen.

In interpolating fairy tales, Immermann, of course, followed a favorite literary technique of his day. Various types of interpolations were consistent with the attitude of the Romantics, who wanted to create in their works a new unification of genres and forms. The fairly tale was the most appropriate expression of Romantic endeavor, for no other form accorded the poet such an unlimited range of his imagination. Novalis conceived of the fairy tale as the most suitable means for a deliberate poeticizing of the whole world. Its powerful imagery enabled him to make accessible all of the finite and infinite world by breaching reality, experience, and casuality and dissolving time and space. Thus the fairy tale placed in an insubstantial medieval setting became a symbol of undistilled longing for the transcendent. The return to a distant past made possible "der verworrenen Gegenwartswelt des Romans in der Einlage eine heile Vorzeit als Massstab und Leitbild gegenuiberzustellen." Closely connected to this implied criticism of the present is the role of the forest as the predominant place of action. In no other body of fairy tales does the forest have such an essentially deictic function as in German, where it is distinctly identified with an untamed primordial state. As the wild part of an otherwise cultivated nature, it is precisely the forest that can become the main scene of enchantment.

Among the individual authors of Romanticism, however, fairy tales do point to essential differences in their respective attitudes toward nature though in every case nature is viewed in an intimate connection with the hero. Tieck emphasizes nature's demonic, hostile character; while in the case of Eichendorff, at least for those of his heroes who have faith in God, the more benevolent aspects of nature predominate. Both poets succeed in creating a truly magical mood in elevating the ideal content of their fairy tales to the symbolic plane.

In Eichendorff s "Marchen vom Wassermann" (chapter 5 of Ahnung und Gegenwart) Erika Voerster finds an important shift in the significance of the interpolated fairy tale. It no longer has the character of a Golden Era, of an ideally harmonious, original state. Instead it is just as problematic and as much subject to crises as is the real world. Thus it is no longer the model and goal for the action and development of the novel. As a result, the claims made upon the hero have changed as well. According to Mimi Jehle's comprehensive investigation of the Kunstmdrchen, Eichendorff s fairy tales challenge man to act and strive within the real world. Consequently the end of Das Marmorbild returns to reality, for Eichendorff ultimately rejects the world of moonlight and dreams and acknowledges that of bright daylight, even if the latter is still colored in a romantic way. In the second of the interpolated fairy tales of Dichter und ihre Gesellen ("Kasperl und Annerl") all is daylight. Contrary to Novalis's "Hyazinth und Rosenbluite," for example, there is none of what Jehle calls "Suchen nach letzter Erkenntnis, von dammernden Zustainden and Halbentschlossenem. Bei aller Phantasterei ist Eichendorffs Marchen der Wirklichkeit naher. Seine grogsse Kunst besteht darin, das wirkliche Leben so zu veredeln, dass es dem Marchen nahekommt." It is precisely in the aspect of Wirklichkeitsndhe that Immermann's tendency can be perceived. But before a detailed analysis of the Waldmarchen "Die Wunder im Spessart" is undertaken, its content should be sketched.

The setting is the Middle Ages. Konrad, a young knight in colorful garb, encounters Petrus, a scholar clad completely in black. While sharing a meal, they recognize each other as former playmates. Their characters are as opposite as their clothes. Konrad is vivacious, dedicated to knightly skills and fleeting pleasures. Petrus is quiet and pensive; as a disciple of the famous Albertus Magnus he is dedicated to the sciences and the secret arts by means of which he wants to penetrate the innermost core of nature. Konrad tries in vain to persuade his friend to accompany him to a joust. They separate; and Petrus, following an irresistible urge, walks deep into the forest. There he pronounces the magic word which enables him to understand the language of animals. He encounters a princess who—according to what the magpie says—has been put to sleep by the evil canker king. The magpie tells him that in order to release her from the spell, he must get the twig of a yew tree from the wise old man who lives in the ravine and touch the princess with it. Then she will be his. By way of recompense Petrus has to plug all the cracks in the cave which the old man inhabits. While he works at this, the years fly by. One day, when the sleeping princess appears to him in a vision, he finally seizes the twig of the yew. With a mighty thunderclap, nature reverts to its earlier state. But Petrus finds himself an old man. At the edge of the forest he meets his friend Konrad and the beautiful princess when Konrad has awakened with a kiss—not from a spell but merely from a natural slumber.

Many of the former fairy tale elements resemble those of the Romantics, such as the contrast of reality and phantasy, the real world and the hidden one. In addition, there are the youths' quest for adventure and Petrus's character as a dreamer searching for the ultimate wisdom. Dreamlike states, subconscious action, a transformation into an old man, and the atmosphere of the forest are also found. But an unusual element in Immermann's fairy tale is the occurrence of two heroes, both of whom are in love with the princess. Thus, even in its basic structure this fairy tale is set apart from most. Petrus and Konrad are as different from each other as they can be. Petrus is a night person, singlemindedly devoted to the intellect, to phantasy, and to the pursuit of magic in the hidden world. Konrad, on the other hand, prefers sunlight; he is energetic, impervious to moods, devoted to reality and the pleasures of this world. The princess can belong only to one of them. Eichendorff, to be sure, has Florio start out as a dreamer; but Florio changes. He acknowledges the real, workaday world and returns to it. Petrus is unable to do this. Consequently, the princess goes to the lighthearted, vivacious Konrad, the man of action, who perceives in her no more and no less than a desirable, beautiful woman instead of a bewitched being. He proceeds to marry his Emma and, like a good bourgeois, expects of her a happy household and many handsome children. Petrus, the man of reflection, remains behind, a wretched fool, a victim of his imagination.

In contrast to the symbolically enhanced narratives of Tieck and Eichendorff, Immermann's Waldmarchen is clearly an allegory. The sylvan atmosphere which Tieck creates by way of suggestion, euphony, and emphasis of the typical is in Immermann's case precise, definite, and graphic. As a matter of fact, there exist actual impressions which Immermann recorded in his diary during his Frdnkische Reise and which he subsequently embellished poetically. Moreover, the mood is frequently broken by reflections and explanations. It could be maintained that he chose the form of an allegorical fairy tale in keeping with the character of his novel, for the whole of Münchhausen gives the impression of being an allegory.

In regard to Immermann's attitude toward nature Harry Maync remarks: "Aus dem Schosse der wahren Natur und der unmittelbaren Gegenwart wachst ihm alles Erstrebenswerte hervor." The text will support this observation. The fairly tale is unexpectedly inserted at the end of the fifth book instead of being attached to the love scene ten pages earlier, where it is reported that Oswald is telling it to Lisbeth. But well before the reader himself is privy to it, the two discuss its pros and cons.

Als er auserzahlt hatte und sie nichts sagte, fragte er sie wie es ihr gefallen habe.—"Ja, sieh," erwiderte sie sie Schüchetern, "es ging mir eigen mit deinen Wundern im Spessart. Ich glaube, ich hatte sie in der Stube horen mussen, da wulrde ich mir den Wald hinzugedacht haben, aber hier unter den grilnen Blattern, bei den wehenden Winden und dem fliessenden Wasser kam mir alles so unnaturlich vor, und ich konnte nicht recht daran glauben."

Die Antwort machte ihn froh, als habe er das begeistertste Lob vernommen.

This passage shows that the actual and objective is preferable to that which is merely described, no matter how wondrous the latter might be. Thus Immermann prepares the way for the reader to understand the fairy tale which follows, seemingly without an immediate plot connection.

Petrus, the apprentice magician, wants to be master of the mysterious forces of nature. He thinks: "Gott wirkt zwar in der Natur, aber die Natur wirkt auch fur sich, und wer der rechten Krafte Meister ist, der kann ihr eigenes und selbstandiges Leben hervorrufen, dass ihre sonst in Gott gebundenen Glieder sich zu ganz neuen Regungen entfalten". But his aspiration turns out to be sacrilege. Petrus utters the magic word and immediately finds himself in a horrifying nightmare. Although he can understand the language of the animals and look into the interior of plants, he remains helpless in a world of nature that holds only chaos and horror. Space and time are monstrously distorted. In the actual duration of one hour he turns from a youth into an old man as punishment for his sacrilege. While it is true that in the writing of poets who are unequivocally part of the romantic scene, destruction, physical and mental, does occur; nevertheless, the Ahndung of nature in its transcendence generally retains its attractive powers. For Immermann, however, "wird die Hingabe an das Damonische der Natur zu einem blossen Verfehlen, sie gehort in den Bereich des menschlichen Wahns und des Fixiertseins an eine 'Idealitat,' die in Wahrheit gar keine ist." Thus Petrus realizes in the end: "War Gott versucht und die Natur, uber den stuirzen Gesichte, an denen er rasch verwittert".

The supreme law is that God is at work in nature; only He is "der rechten Krafte Meister." Contrary to Petrus's assumption, nature does not possess a life based on inherent inner laws into which man is able to gain insight by virtue of his intellectual powers. That attempt leads to terrifying Gesichte, that is, phantomlike figments of the imagination. The Waldmarchen thus incorporates as well a contrast between intellect and emotion. Petrus is searching for the ultimate sense of things in the realm of Wissen. He keeps apart from others and his environment; he knows no other street than the one that takes him to the monastery. Only the search for the treasures of the intellect, the dialectic idea, and ultimate comprehension occupies him. When Konrad points out to Petrus how pale he is, the latter answers; "Nicht der Sprung des Blutes macht das Leben aus; weiss ist der Marmor, und Marmorwahde pflegen die Raume einzuschliessen, in welchen Gotterbilder aufgerichtet stehen". This reply reveals the one-sidedness of a mind as cold as splendid marble which negates the pulse of life and confuses in tragic misjudgment Gott and Gotterbilder.

As Lisbeth says, nature is "der Mantel Gottes"; it is an eternal divine cloak that cannot be stripped off by a magic word. For someone alienated from life it is ultimately as empty as the pockets of Petrus's black overcoat, as meaningless as the jumbled chatter of the animals which he imagines he hears, as transient as the savings, "deren keiner aufbehalten geblieben ist," which, with sightless eyes, he mumbles to himself. But for one who can feel deeply, nature is the final essence; forest and flowers are eventual reality, in whose beauty one delights, whose colors—red, yellow, and green—are the expression of vitality. For him "die grilnen, gelben und roten Zeichen" join to form a complete image instead of breaking apart as they do for Petrus. Beings such as Oswald, Lisbeth, and Konrad both see and feel the innermost character, the essence of nature simply in the way it is, in its beauty yet also in its productive interchange between man, animal, and insect. For them, nature is not a secret that needs to be unraveled; the owl is no wise old man; a woman's veil no magic spider-web cast by the canker king; a sleeping girl no enchanted princess. Any attempt to perceive something unreal behind all these is an exercise in futility. This is signified by Petrus's "unending" endeavor to seal off from the light of day the cave of the supposed wise old man, a task akin to that of Sisyphus; for Petrus has hardly filled one chink when the moss he uses falls out again. In the last analysis, his undertaking is nothing but a tragic flight into darkness rather than into enlightenment.

For Immermann, the mere supposition of any sort of supernatural feature in nature should be relegated to the province of erroneous human fancy. The actual miracle of the Spessart is the coincidence which allows Konrad to find his lady love in the forest. Emma is for him "holdseliges Wunder dieses Forstes," his Seligkeit blossoming forth "wie ein goldenes Marchen" (p. 104). With a firm belief in God, his consciousness—quite like that of Lisbeth when she listens to Oswald's tale—is open to the objective beauty of nature and life. This oppenness vis a vis den Dingen is for Immermann the essential core of a "sensible" attitude toward life. Related to this—in a parallel to Eichendorff—is also the zestful Sicheinlassen with the objects in and of life, with actual existence. In Immermann's "Waldmarchen," too, the frame of the past is no longer the measure of an harmonious original condition. Die Dinge are in themselves the ground of being, as Immermann indicates in one of his "Chiliastische Sonnette." When Lisbeth then calls nature the Mantel Gottes which no magic word can strip off, it means that the innermost core of nature is God Himself. Trying to intrude into the essence of God by means of magic is sheer delusion.

Thus the fairy tale, with which Novalis wanted to poeticize the world, serves Immermann as a means to disenchant an artificially conceived construct of nature. In its place, he sets the natural magic which emanates from the things themselves as the essence of God. This attitude removes Immermann from the magic idealism of Novalis which—as he says in the Memorabilien—has arisen "aus der Sehnsucht nach einem Nichtdaseienden." Instead he considers as requisite the task of passing through the Romantic "in das realistisch-pragmatische Element." His interpolated fairy tale "Die Wunder im Spessart" distinctly reveals not only the break between the romantic and realistic attitude, but also a whole new orientation based on an instinctive embracing of reality. Thus form and ethos of the Waldmarchen clearly show Immermann as a precursor of realism.