Till Eulenspiegel
Encyclopedia
Trickster
In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...
figure originating in Middle Low German
Middle Low German
Middle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...
folklore
German folklore
German folklore shares many characteristics with Scandinavian folklore and English folklore due to their origins in a common Germanic mythology. It reflects a similar mix of influences: a pre-Christian pantheon and other beings equivalent to those of Norse mythology; magical characters associated...
. His tales were disseminated in popular printed editions narrating a string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France. He made his main entrance in English-speaking culture late in the nineteenth century as "Owlglass", but was first mentioned in English literature by Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
in his comedic play The Alchemist
The Alchemist (play)
The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature...
.
Origin and tradition
"General opinion now tends to regard Till Eulenspiegel as an entirely imaginary figure around whose name was gathered a cycle of tales popular in the Middle Ages," Ruth Michaelis-Jena observes "Yet legendLegend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
ary figures need a definite background to make them memorable and Till needed the reality of the Braunschweig landscape and real towns to which he could travel—Cologne, Rostock, Bremen and Marburg among them—and whose burghers become the victims of his pranks."
According to the tradition, Eulenspiegel was born in Kneitlingen
Kneitlingen
Kneitlingen is a municipality in the Wolfenbüttel district in the German state of Lower Saxony, situated in Brunswick Land between the Elm and Asse hill ranges. It is part of the Samtgemeinde Schöppenstedt....
near Brunswick
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
around 1300. He travelled through the Holy Roman Empire
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...
, especially Northern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, but also the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
, Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. His mobility as a Landfahrer ("vagrant") personifies the constitution and consciousness of the Late Middle Ages.
Since the early 19th century, many German scholars have made attempts to find historical evidence of Till Eulenspiegel's existence. In his 1980 book Till Eulenspiegel, historian Bernd Ulrich Hucker mentions that according to a contemporary legal register of the city of Brunswick one Till van Cletlinge ("Till from/of Kneitlingen") was incarcerated there in the year 1339, along with four of his accomplices, for highway robbery.
While he is unlikely to have been based on an historic person, by the sixteenth century, Eulenspiegel was said to have died in Mölln
Molln
Molln is a municipality in the district of Kirchdorf an der Krems in Upper Austria, Austria.-References:...
, near Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, of the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
in 1350, according to a gravestone attributed to him there, which was noted by Fynes Moryson
Fynes Moryson
Fynes Moryson spent most of the decade of the 1590s travelling on the European continent and the eastern Mediterranean lands...
in his Itinerary, 1591. "Don't move this stone, let that be clear - Eulenspiegel's buried here" is written on the stone in Low German.
In the stories, he is presented as a trickster
Trickster
In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...
or fool
Court jester
A jester, joker, jokester, fool, wit-cracker, prankster, or buffoon was a person employed to tell jokes and provide general entertainment, typically for a European monarch. Jesters are stereotypically thought to have worn brightly colored clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern...
who played practical jokes on his contemporaries, exposing vices at every turn, greed and folly, hypocrisy and foolishness. As Peter Carels notes, "The fulcrum of his wit in a large number of the tales is his literal interpretation of figurative language." In these stories, anything that can go wrong in communication, does go wrong. And it is not the exception that communication gives rise to complications; rather, it is the rule. As a model of communication, Till Eulenspiegel is the inherent, unpredictable factor of complication that can throw any communication, whether with oneself or others, into disarray. These irritations, amounting to conflicts, have the potential of effecting mental paradigm changes and increases in the level of consciousness, and in the end, of leading to truth. Although craftsmen are featured as the principal victims of his pranks, neither the nobility nor the pope are exempt from being fooled by him.
In the end, Eulenspiegel's pranks are not so much about the exposure of human weaknesses and malice, as much as the animus he embodies — the implicit breaking up and sublimation of a given status of consciousness, by means of its negation. A common theme to these stories is that of turning the prevailing mental horizon upside down, and unseating it with a higher one.
The tales in print
The two earliest printed editions, in Early New High GermanEarly New High German
Early New High German is a term for the period in the history of the German language, generally defined, following Wilhelm Scherer, as the period 1350 to 1650.Alternative periodisations take the period to begin later; e.g...
, "Ein kurtzweilig Lesen von Dyl Ulenspiegel, geboren uß dem Land zu Brunßwick, wie er sein leben volbracht hat …", are Johannes Grüninger's in Strassburg, 1510–11 and 1515. In spite of often-repeated suggestions to the effect "that the name 'Eulenspiegel' was used in tales of rogues and liars in Lower Saxony as early as 1400", previous references to a Till Eulenspiegel actually turn out to be surprisingly elusive, Paul Oppenheimer concludes. The authorship is attributed to Hermann Bote. Puns that do not work in High German indicate that the book was written in Low German first and translated into High German in order to find a larger audience, although more recent research throws this into question.
The literal translation of the High German name "Eulenspiegel" gives "owl mirror", two symbols that identify Till Eulenspiegel in crude popular woodcuts (illustration). However, the original Low German is believed to be ul'n Spegel, meaning "wipe the arse". In the eighteenth century, German satirists adopted episodes for social satire, and in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century versions of the tales are bowdlerized, to render them fit for children, who had come to be considered their chief natural audience, by expurgating their many scatological references. In the current Oppenheimer edition (see above) scatological stories abound, beginning with Till's early childhood (in which he rides behind his father and exposes his rear-end to the townspeople) and persisting until his death bed (where he tricks a priest into soiling his hands with feces).
Current popularity
The book has been translated, often in mutilated versions, into many languages. There are two museums in Germany featuring Till Eulenspiegel. One is located in the small town of SchöppenstedtSchöppenstedt
Schöppenstedt is a town in the district of Wolfenbüttel, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated southwest of the Elm, approx. 17 km east of Wolfenbüttel, and 21 km southeast of Braunschweig...
in Lower Saxony, which is nearby his supposed birthplace. The other is located in the supposed place of his death, the city of Mölln
Molln
Molln is a municipality in the district of Kirchdorf an der Krems in Upper Austria, Austria.-References:...
in Schleswig-Holstein.
See also
- Hermann Bote: Eulenspiegel. (Auswahl aus tiefenpsychologischer Sicht). Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-389821-981-5
- The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme GoedzakThe Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme GoedzakThe Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak is a 1867 novel by Charles De Coster. Based on the 14th century Low German figure Till Eulenspiegel, Coster's novel recounts the allegorical adventures as those of a Flemish prankster Thyl Ulenspiegel during the Reformation wars in the...
, an 1867 novel by Charles De CosterCharles De CosterCharles-Theodore-Henri De Coster was a Belgian novelist whose efforts laid the basis for a native Belgian literature.... - Till Eulenspiegels lustige StreicheTill Eulenspiegels lustige StreicheTill Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks , Op. 28, is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, chronicling the misadventures and pranks of the German peasant folk hero, Till Eulenspiegel. The two themes representing Till are played respectively by the horn and the D clarinet...
, a tone poem by Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, 1894–95, Op. 28. - a 1916 ballet by the Ballets RussesBallets RussesThe Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
, see Vaslav NijinskyVaslav NijinskyVaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. He grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations...
, later adapted by George BalanchineGeorge BalanchineGeorge Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
for Jerome RobbinsJerome RobbinsJerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
at New York City BalletNew York City BalletNew York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company... - a verse by Gerhart HauptmannGerhart HauptmannGerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...
, titled Till Eulenspiegel (1927) - NasreddinNasreddinNasreddin was a Seljuq satirical Sufi figure, sometimes believed to have lived during the Middle Ages and considered a populist philosopher and wise man, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes. He appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but often, too, a fool or...
, Medieval Middle Eastern literature has a character similar to Eulenspiegel - Hershele OstropolerHershele OstropolerHershele Ostropoler, also known as Hershel of Ostropol, is a prominent figure in Jewish humor, and the Jewish equivalent of Nasreddin and Till Eulenspiegel. Hershele was a prankster who lived in poverty and targeted the rich and powerful, both Jew and Gentile. Common folks were not safe from his...
, an early-19th-century Jewish prankster similar in character to Eulenspiegel - Sly Peter, a Bulgarian and Macedonian character similar to Eulenspiegel
- Kenneth R. H. MackenzieKenneth R. H. MackenzieKenneth Robert Henderson Mackenzie was an English linguist, orientalist and autodidact.-Early life:Mackenzie was born on 31 October 1833 at Deptford near London, England. The following year, his family lived in Vienna, where his father, Dr. Rowland Hill Mackenzie, was assistant surgeon in the...
’s translation, "Master Tyll Owlglass: His Marvellous Adventures and Rare Conceits", published in London by George RoutledgeGeorge RoutledgeGeorge Routledge was a British publisher.He gained his earliest experience of business with a bookseller at Carlisle...
, 1859 (U.S. edition published in Boston by Ticknor and FieldsTicknor and FieldsTicknor and Fields was an American publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts.-Early years:In 1832 William Davis Ticknor and John Allen began a small publishing business which operated out of the Old Corner Bookstore located on Washington and School Streets in Boston, Massachusetts...
, 1860). - Translation