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Home , Johann Nestroy, Johann Peter Hebel, Karl Kraus (writer), Karl Stieler, Theodor Storm, Vernacular

10.3726/82044_133

Verisimilitude by Way of Vernacular Language and in Since the Middle of the 18th Century

By Peter Pabisch, Albuquerque

New insights into German literary studies, Germanistik, necessitate bringing to the fore rather old matters at times, such as the use of dialect in all the genres. Amazingly the study of dialect literature or the inclusion of dialect phrases into otherwise Standard German texts appears to be rather sparse, so that the term as here suggested – ‘versimilitude’ – can hardly be detected in literary encyclope- dias even though its importance should be obvious. The following brief dis- course will shed some light on this phenomenon, with the implication that this deficiency in literary German research is in the process of being reversed by some experts in the field. The use of everyday colloquial speech, actually written in German litera- ture, remains rare to this day, even though powerful dialect movements and waves counteracted this ruling trend vehemently at times, such as the dialect wave following H. C. Artmann’s book of Viennese dialect poetry med ana schwoazzn dintn (with black ink, 1958). The linguistic discourse analyzing philological, historical, social, psychological, even political reasons for this phenomenon stretches over miles of book pages and treatises. In a nutshell though, the usage of alone versus its interception with or also the sole application of or vernaculars refers back to Schiller’s and Goethe’s aesthetic theories of beauty of the language in their classical period around the year 1800, whereby they manifested that the purity of the standard language was capable of reflecting the ugliest, most violent situations. Thereby they strictly opted against the use of dialect, claiming that the beauty of the German standard language could and should portray even the most hideous immoral and criminal acts. Only their contemporary Johann Gottfried Herder supported dialect ar- rangements to be used in literary texts, as primarily alluded to in his widely recognized essay “Vom Ursprung der Sprache” (About the origin of language, 1771/72). Thus an early to middle 19th century dialect wave, represented by such authors as the North Germans Fritz Reuter and , or the Alemannic-Swiss , next to an impressive number of lesser, i. e. only regionally known authors, demonstrated the feasibility of this usage. These authors were followed by naturalists in literature, such as Gerhart and Carl Hauptmann, Arno Holz and Johannes Schlaf, Ludwig Anzengruber or the

133 Tyrolian expressionist Karl Schoenherr, as well as by a series of neo-romantic writers from Karl Stieler to Peter Rosegger, all developments around the end of the 19th , beginning of the 20th century, leading into modern eras such as those of dadaism and surrealism on the one hand or Neue Sachlichkeit on the other, as ’ monster – “written for a Martian theater” – Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind) specifies during and shortly after , namely written from 1914/15 to 1921. For Goethe, who did accept dialect as a form of the spoken word, and for Schiller their phase of Storm and Stress indicated a wilder use of the language as symbolized by the infamous quotation of Goetz – das ‘Goetz-Zitat’, or certain expressions in Schiller’s Die Raeuber against the tyrants of the era: “Franz heißt die Kanaille!” Yet even these curses were to be uttered in standard German. Goethe did write one dialect poem – albeit in Swiss German – from his journey to in his early Storm and Stress years. A young maiden admires the scenery with its mountains and birds, and she is waiting for Hansel, her lover. The first stanza thereof – “Schweizerlied”

Uf ’m Bergli / Bin I gesässe, / Ha de Vögle / Zugeschaut; / Hänt gesunge, / Hänt gesprunge, / Hänts Nästli / Gebaut.

There are three more stanzas; yet that is it, as far as the total, otherwise Standard German work of Goethe indicates. He did not despise dialect as a form of expression orally, the Germans also refer to dialect as ‘Mundart’, though he gave up vulgar and vernacular language in literature during his Italian journey, during which he transcribed some of his early plays from prose to verse form, thereby clearly distancing his aesthetic production from every- day albeit Standard . And so it remained the norm for generations, in fact even today the view on how to present literature remains divided between two extreme camps. Already the realists, such as and more so , did feel uneasy in having the uneducated peasant speak the same language as the doctor or lawyer. Whereas Theodor Storm used only a few examples, Jeremias Gotthelf from Bern, Switzerland, wrote 1845: “I never want to write in dialect, and nobody will notice dialect on my first twenty pages, yet afterwards I am forced into it, whether I want to or not.” One feels the almost apologetic tone in this author’s justification for having broken a strict aesthetic law. In retrospect though, we have to welcome his bravery, because even though Standard German has prevailed, many writers of today feel the limitations when avoid- ing everyday language in their literary texts. Earlier in the year 2013 the famous Austrian author Josef Haslinger, who was voted into the presidency of the German PEN Center in May of that year, told me during his visit in Albuquerque in March, that he has decided to use dialect in certain direct

134 discourse passages of his recent and upcoming novels – despite the protest of his publishers. Why his publishers would protest the application of dialect remains arbitrary, because most dialect writers do not use diacritic signs anymore, but stay within the letters of the alphabet, writing their passages somewhat phonemically and graphemically. And who are they to dictate the modes of writing? Well, their power in providing the economic support for all publications suffices as the main reason. Yet, a renowned author as Josef Haslinger can insist on his demands nonetheless. Other literatures have an easier time in accepting dialect or vernacular language. We may take the writing of the British author D. H. Lawrence and his novels such as Lady Chatterly’s Lover, or Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, or Robert Burns’ Songs, or Lord Tennyson’s poetry which he partly wrote in Lincolnshire dialect. In German tradition, even until after World War II, dialect plays were banned from national German theater and moved into people’s theaters, in for example the “Volkstheater”. Since the social changes after 1945 there has been a reformed attitude. Although the situation appears far from solved a acceptance of non standard utterances in literature can be observed, so that a cultural transition of these “lower” realms of language has taken place over the last decades. Not all writers go along, but the formation of parties, to use the democratic term from politics, has emerged, a situation to be described more closely in this subsequent, however brief discourse. To summarize and reiterate the need for verisimilitude in literary lan- guage according to such authors as , e. g. in his early play Die Weber: Even though school education has existed in Central Europe, especially in , Switzerland, and at least for elementary school years throughout the 19th century, Standard German was not spoken by the people in everyday life. Therefore Hauptmann and others felt that the utter- ances of corresponding figures in drama ought to be presented in Mundart, thus in dialect. Already in his early novel Buddenbrooks applies some dialect where needed, as he felt. For example, the famous scene of ‘revolution’ in the first part of the novel (Vierter Teil, Drittes Kapitel) has old Konsul Buddenbrooks argue with Carl Smolt, one of his revolting employees, because the workers have gone on strike for better working conditions. An excerpt of this dialogue in Luebeck Platt sounds as follows:

“Nu red mal, Corl Smolt! Nu is’ Tied! Ji heww hier den leewen langen Namiddag bröllt …” “Je, Herr Kunsel …”, brachte Corl Smolt kauend hervor. “Dat’s nu so’n Saak … öäwer. . Dat is nu so wied … Wi maaken nu Revolutschon.” “Wat’s dat för Undög, Smolt!”

135 “Je, Herr Kunsel, dat seggen Sei woll, öäwer dat is nu so wied … wi sünd nu nich mihr taufreeden mit de Saak … Wi verlangen nu ne anner Ordnung, un dat is ja ook gor nich mihr, daß dat wat is …” “Hür mal, Corl Smolt, un ihr annern Lüd! Wer nu’n verstännigen Kierl is, der geht naa Hus un schert sich nich mihr um Revolution und stört hier nich de Ordnung.”

This brief sample shows clearly that dialect expresses serious matters, as here the working conditions of the deprived class of harbor employees who would like to see things changed. Yet also for peers of the upper class Thomas Mann provides the example. Herr Permaneder from who later becomes part of the family, explains to the Konsul’s son an economic situation (Sechster Teil, 1. Kapitel, p. 331) in Bavarian dialect from Munich:

Übrigens … I will nixen g’sagt ham, Herr Nachbohr! Dös is fei a nett’s G’schäfterl! Mer machen a Geld mit der Aktien-Brauerei, wovon der Niederpaur Direktor is, wissen S’. Dös is a ganz a kloane G’sellschaft g’wesen, aber mer ham eahna an Kredit geben und a bares Göld … zu vier Prozent, auf Hypothek … damit s’ eahnere Gebäud’ ham vergreßern können … Und jetzt mochen s’ a G’schäft, und mer ham an Umsatz und a Jahreseinnahm’ – dös haut scho’!

Thomas Mann, although born and raised in Luebeck, lived in Munich a few years and learned the local vernacular very well obviously. Almost a century later the same happened to Peter Turrini’s rozznjogd (Chasing rats) in Viennese ; it had to be rewritten from a heavy Viennese jargon into Standard German. The same was already true for ’s plays and to a lesser degree for certain passages in Ferdinand Raimund’s plays; however they are written in Standard German but always portrayed in Viennese dialect when played in Austria or . Nonetheless all these authors enjoy popularity over the entire German realm, some of their plays rank among the recognized works of world literature, such as Johann Nestroy’s social comedy Einen Jux will er sich machen (He is out for fun) that was transformed by Thorton Wilder into , which in turn was to become the musical Hello Dolly. When Nestroy’s original version is performed in Vienna there is hardly a word of Standard German to be heard unless some legal expressions or the are quoted. Even into our days Standard Language is connected with upper class lingo and as the language of calculation, i. e. higher or at least bourgeois education. And this feeling is more so where the dialect in its many variations is spoken among the people. It is an erroneous assumption that the dialect cannot perform in certain academic fields and can only be used for the expressions of specific social realms. When I went to school my peers and I discussed mathematical and philosophical problems in dialect among each other. Whenever I visit my

136 home town Vienna for our annual gatherings and meet my school colleagues from teacher training college which we attended from 1952 to 57, not a word of Standard German can be heard. Though all my friends, now retired, had leading positions as school principals, superintendents of schools, text writers and experts for new school laws – all to be written in Standard German –, or also others as top engineers for Siemens, or even a high priest for the Roman in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, when we meet we speak in dialect. We have grown up bilingual and thus we are bilingual! Our dialect serves as a language, not a play form of the Standard Language. Austro-Bavarian is likely related to Wulfila’s Gothic of the third century, the German standard language in contrast is a product of the 16th to 17th century and was perfected a century thereafter, as is well known. Plattdeutsch in its variants from Mecklenburgian to Westphalian goes even back into Proto-Germanic times in its consonant roots. And the famous author Klaus Groth (1809 to 1899) insisted that his Schleswig Holstein dialect was equal to Standard German. For all these variants are available and even primers how to speak these dialects somewhat correctly, since they are not derivates of the Standard language, but in fact it appears to be in some consequence the other way round. On the other hand, except for some Swiss- German circles, no German speaker in his right mind would want to give up Standard German. It is taught in school and it is the of all German language realms. German people from different regions cannot understand one another in their respective tongues, as is well known. Thus Standard German is protected by law, including its orthography and the enforcement to speak it in the official legal domain, government, education, etc. These observations underline the need for considering the second languages of tens of millions of Germans to appear also in literature. In drama, when certain figures do speak dialect phrases, they follow their authors’ empathy for the real situation in life and thus their application of verisimilitude in language. Not everyone agrees. In Switzerland certain pedagogues vehemently oppose the use of dialect; they are called “Die Ausrotter” (The annihilators) and enjoy little popularity amongst their peers. This term verisimilitude (German: Versimilität) does not apply to dialect only but also to other languages. Nobel Prize winner uses English and French for certain situations and figures in her novels. Thomas Mann finds it appropriate in The Magic Mountain to describe the ultimate love scene between Madame Chauchat and Hans Castorp in French. None of the serious writers would use dialect to make fun, as for the tourists. In this way dialect has been abused, even prostituted by certain economic entertainment circles in tourism; they ridicule country people, make them appear demented, thus stupid and look down on them. The Tyrolian poet Hans Haid, by profession an Austrian scholar of Ethnic Studies, characterized this maltreatment as the

137 need for entertaining tourists with a constant ironic display of peasants as being drunk and yodling (“ougsöüffnar jöüdlen”). Therefore the entire so called dialect wave from the fifties to the eighties of the last century turned into a powerful demonstration of the value of various dialects as languages and written as such. Consequently the argument of philologists at the “Deutscher Sprachatlas” in Marburg for example, who tried to manifest Standard German as written, but German dialects as spoken only, has to be considered outdated. That had to be and was labeled humbug already in the seventies of the last century. “Liedermacher” and dialect poets using written dialect texts, had more audi- ences in those years (the 1950s to the 1980s), than standard German poets. But that is another, although most intriguing topic. The most powerful author to express verisimilitude in German literature within the last century was without any question the Austrian publicist and essayist Karl Kraus (1874 to 1936), one year older than Thomas Mann and a cooperator of in the preparations for the Threepenny Opera in in the late 1920s. An absolute master of the standard German language he had a great sense for echoing situations as they occurred. In his volume Die Sprache which appeared posthumously shortly after his passing (1936), he lays proof that he understood the art of writing in Standard German admirably. Yet in his drama Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The last days of mankind) he delivers his skilled usage of verisimilitude characterizing every figure with the language they uttered in daily life. The first poets of modern German dialect literature after World War II, the representatives of the Wiener

Gruppe (the Vienna Group), especially H. C. Artmann, Gerhard Ruehm and Friedrich Achleitner, adopted the views of Karl Kraus in this regard. They argued for example that the Viennese jargon of certain low class districts has to be understood as the ugliest representation of the German tongue and only the most disreputable human beings would articulate it, as for example the guards of concentration camps who often were chosen by the Nazis from criminal circles to do their despicable job of killing the innocent. There were, however, very educated murderous rogues heading the camps, e. g. the infa- mous physician Mengele, who spoke Standard German who also liked to listen to Beethoven symphonies as performed by some luckier musical jews of his camp. Yet the majority of concentration camp employees came from social circles that opted for Hitler for all sorts of negative and opportunistic reasons. Their language use can be found in Karl Kraus’ figure of the food store owner Vinzenz Chramosta in Vienna, an early “Herr Karl” of the twen- ties, thus before World War II. He takes advantage of the fact that food was scarce and costly during World War I, so that he orders his clients around in the most contemptible language humiliating them constantly:

138 6. SZENE In der Viktualienhandlung des Vinzenz Chramosta

(In the grocery store of V. Ch.) Chramosta (zu einer Frau): Der Schmierkas? Zehn Deka vier Kronen! – Was, zu teuer? Auf ’d Wochen kost er sechse, wanns Ihna net recht is, gehn S’um a Häusl weiter und kaufn S’Ihna an Dreck, der wird nacher bülliger sein. Schamsterdiener! – (Zu einem Mann) Wos wolln Sö? Kosten wolln Sö? Sö Herr Sö, was glaubn denn Sö? Jetzt is Kriag! Wann Ihna a Dreck besser schmeckt, probiern S’ ’n! – (Zu einer Frau) Was stessen S’denn umanand, a jeder kummt dran! Wos wolln S’? A Gurken? Nach’n Gwicht, aber dös sag i Ihna glei, zwa Kronen die klanste! – (Zu einem Mann) Wos? A Wurscht? Schaun S’daß weiter kummen Sö Tepp, wo solln mir denn jetzt a Wurscht hernehmen – was sich die Leut einbilden, wirklich großartig! – (Zu einer Frau) Wos schaun S’denn? Dös is guat gwogn, ’s Papier wiegt aa! Jetzt is Kriag! Wann’s Ihna net recht is, lassen S’ es stehn, kummen S’mr aber net mehr unter die Augen, Sö blade Urschl, dös sag i Ihna! [abbreviated]

In a fictitious, but truth bearing way the scene reflects the dehumanized social situation for certain people during war time. Karl Kraus attempts to simulate the situation as real as possible, even though his literature is presented as fiction. The question of fiction as to its purpose and function should be included in the theoretical assessment of the phenomenon of verisimilitude. Why would creative treatment of any topic have to reflect reality or what it is suggested to be? Does the Standard Language not suffice in depicting plots and scenes without having to adopt reality, here of actually spoken language? The counter question, obviously, would be: Why can we not incorporate any type of non standard utterance into fictitious texts? Interjections, as the word type for emotions is called, may fulfill this purpose too: Ah! Oh! Uh! Brrr! Wumm! – are accepted words of Standard German. Why not dialect and other language utterances in an otherwise Standard German text? Whether for dialect phrases should be provided as footnotes, as it has happened often, remains a matter of necessity, taste and circumstance. Of course it is different with entire books in dialect, but either glossaries or standard German render- ings have been utilized adequately also. Written dialect can be interpreted easier than spoken, because written dialect reveals the relationship to Standard German in its roots easier. Often the consonants in two given texts look alike, even though the vowels are diphthongized or, vice versa, monophthongized. Spoken dialect can be hard to discern and to fathom when heard only. Oddly enough many philologists have been trained to read Old or Middle High German which can seem closer to dialects. Also here similarities to New High German may be so close that one can understand the text without further

139 explanations such as footnotes or glossaries, whereas listening to it only can be more difficult. Finally, when speaking dialect modern humans can be caught in unex- pected circumstances, and then the dialect can convey the surprise over an adverse experience. It can show a more convincing effect on the soul of this observed unassuming citizen, such as the one who came home to his village near Bremen and did not find it because INTERBAU, a huge, powerful construction firm, had done its underhanded job. The author Walter A. Kreye who lived and wrote in Bremen composed the following poem in PLATT in the 1970s, thereby representing a naïve dialect speaking bystander:

MIEN DÖRP Ick heff mien Dörp söcht un nich wedderfunnen; de INTERBAU weer vör mi dor.

Would this poem sound as convincing in standard German, coming from a simple, most likely not very educated person? It has been argued for some time, that just as the world of yesterday has changed or even totally disappeared dialects have lost their purpose and thus have ceased to exist. Nevertheless as long as they surface in intervals they are showing life and demonstrate the ability through their authors to adjust to the changes, be they in entire texts or as parts of texts, as the examples of verisimilitude attempt to prove. Therefore their application by authors in German literature to various degrees has to be noted and incorporated into the entire research deliberation of the German literature sphere.

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