Werke und Briefe.

Volume I: Lyrik 1887-1905 by Christian Morgenstern; Martin Kiessig;

Werke und Briefe. Volume V: Aphorismen by Christian Morgenstern; Reinhardt Habel; Werke
und Briefe. Volume VI: Kritische Schriften by Christian Morgenstern; Helmut Gumtau
Review by: Raymond Furness
The Modern Language Review, Vol. 85, No. 4 (Oct., 1990), p. 1028
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3732765 .
Accessed: 28/01/2015 20:33
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to The Modern Language Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 193.54.174.3 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 20:33:59 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Reviews

1028

Werkeund Briefe. By CHRISTIANMORGENSTERN.Volume I: Lyrik

Edited
I887-I905.
by MARTIN KIESSIG;Volume v: Aphorismen. Edited by REINHARDTHABEL;
Volume vi: Kritische Schriften. Edited by HELMUTGUMTAU. Stuttgart: Urachhaus. 1988; 1987; 1987. Io59pp.; 763pp.; 894pp. DM I o; DM 80; DM 9o.

This new Stuttgarter Ausgabe of the work of Christian Morgenstern will ultimately
consist of nine volumes: three have so far appeared. The edition promises to be the
first scholarly assessment of the published work as well as of Morgenstern'sNachlaft:
contributions and essays which appeared in various periodicals under different
pseudonyms will also be brought together for the first time, and the letters will be
published in their entirety. This lavish and methodical presentation of
is timely indeed, replacing as it doubtless will the random and
Morgenstern's oeuvre
rather haphazard editions which have hitherto appeared. It will also redress the
false impression which is at present current of Morgenstern as a whimsical purveyor
of light-hearted verse or as a rapt disciple of Rudolf Steiner. Volume I is a
commentated selection of poetry dating from 1887, and includes the famous In
PhantasSchloJf,
Ichunddie Welt,and UndaberriindetsicheinKreis.The poems from the
Nachlafi demonstrate Morgenstern's remarkable variety of tone, encompassing
poems in Bavarian dialect, visions a la Mombert and satire (the parsimonious
treatment of Liliencron). The Apparat, as may be expected, is punctilious and
impressive in its detail. Volume v contains the collected aphorismsplus 530 from the
NachlaJp:Morgenstern may be compared with Nietzsche in the trenchant and elegant
refinement of his thought, which ranges over nature, art, literature, theatre,
language, politics, education, psychology, and mysticism. The commentary is here
more extensive than the actual text, and Reinhardt Habel is to be congratulated for
leading the reader through the labyrinth. Volume vI reminds us of Morgenstern's
critical writings (his editorship of Das Theater,his activity as Lektor for Bruno
Cassirer) and covers a wide range of essays and reviews (for Jugend and Die
Gesellschaftand other lesser-known journals). Morgenstern's intellectual range is
indeed astounding, and this excellent edition will give him the stature that he so
richly deserves.
UNIVERSITY

OF ST ANDREWS

RAYMOND FURNESS

Thomas Mann Jahrbuch. Volume I. Edited by ECKHARDHEFTRICHand HANS

WYSLING. Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann. 1988. 246pp. DM60.

The launch of this splendid new yearbook, which is published in cooperation with
the Deutsche Thomas-Mann-Gesellschaft Lilbeck, is to be welcomed. To judge by
its first volume it will quickly establish itself as a major periodical no library should
be without: complete with an index of references to Mann's works and one to
individuals, it makes exciting reading. Its style makes it eminently readable, its
material establishes its scholarly credentials.
The first 166 pages contain ten of the twelve papers read at the Second International Thomas-Mann-Kolloquium Liibeck in April 1988. In their written form
they recapture the urbanity, scholarship, and provocation of that gathering made
possible by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The editors are themselves
among the contributors: Hans Wysling's 'Probleme der "Zauberberg"Interpretation' wears its immense learning so lightly that it can map out a whole
adventure of necessary enquiries in a few pages; Eckhard Heftrich's critical analysis
of 'Thomas Manns Verhaltnis zum Deutschtum und Judentum', delivered with
considerable verve, caught the attention of the media at the time and deserves ours.
The ambiguity of Mann's position (and the formulations he allowed himself) are
cause for alarm and in need of explanation in the historical context.

This content downloaded from 193.54.174.3 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 20:33:59 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions