Jean Paul

[This page by Catherine J. Minter]

Jean Paul / Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825)

Jean Paul was one of the most prolific and prominent writers of his generation, but his works are little read today. The linguistic and structural complexity of his writings, coupled with the extraordinary richness of contemporary cultural and intellectual allusions that they contain, represent particular challenges for the modern reader.

Jean Paul’s novels – all of which are long and complicated – are probably the least accessible of his works nowadays, but it was to these that he owed his reputation in his lifetime. In particular, the sentimental-humorous novel Hesperus (1795) was a bestseller by contemporary standards. Titan (1800-1803), which was regarded by its author as his own most significant work, has retained importance as a ‘Bildungsroman’ which incorporates Gothic elements. As a novelist, Jean Paul has often been compared with Laurence Sterne owing to his sentimentality and the whimsicality of his imagery and plots.

Jean Paul was also the author of numerous shorter prose works. Some of these, which may be described as ‘idylls’, depict the harmonious, if limited, lives of lower middle-class figures. Of these, the Leben des vergnügten Schulmeisterlein Maria Wutz in Auenthal; Life of the Merry Little Schoolmaster Maria Wutz in Auenthal (1793) and Leben des Quintus Fixlein (1796) are probably the best known today. Published somewhat later, other of his shorter prose pieces are of a comic-satirical nature, and mock contemporary follies and excesses. These works, which are among Jean Paul’s most accessible narratives, include Des Feldpredigers Schmelzle Reise nach Flätz; Army Chaplain Schmelzle’s Journey to Flätz (1809) and Dr Katzenbergers Badereise (1809).

Jean Paul’s writings were much criticized in his lifetime and throughout the nineteenth century for their structural and linguistic idiosyncrasies. Some literary critics, however, have held him up as one of Germany’s literary greats, a force to rival Goethe and Schiller. The Romantic poet Eichendorff regarded Jean Paul as 'the poet of the secular religion of humanism' (quoted in Eric A. Blackall, see reading list below, p. 248). Although Jean Paul's works have not stood the test of time well, they still have value and appeal for their unique blend of lofty sentimentality and whimsical, sometimes tragic, humour. The unconventional form of Jean Paul’s novels and his self-reflexivity as a narrator also point forwards to modern experiments in fiction. German-language novelists who have expressed their admiration for Jean Paul include Wilhelm Raabe, Hermann Hesse and Thomas Bernhard.

Please click on the above links for further information.

English Translations

Jean Paul: A Reader, ed. by Timothy J. Casey (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992)

Further Reading in English

Dorothea Berger, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (New York: Twayne, 1972)

Eric A. Blackall, The Novels of the German Romantics (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1983), Chapter 4: ‘Towards a Poetic Novel: Jean Paul and Hölderlin’, pp. 65-106

Timothy J. Casey, ‘Digressions for Future Instalments: Some Reflections on Jean Paul’s Epic Outlook’, Modern Language Review 85 (1990), 866-78

Paul Fleming, The Pleasures of Abandonment: Jean Paul and the Life of Humor (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2006)

Catherine J. Minter, The Mind-Body Problem in German Literature 1770-1830: Wezel, Moritz, and Jean Paul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002)

Further Reading in German

Hans Esselborn, ‘Niklas Luhmanns Kommunikation mit Jean Paul in Fußnoten. Die Modernität der Beobachtungen und Gedanken des Dichters’, Wirkendes Wort 63:2 (2013), 267-96

Jadwiga Kita-Huber, Jean Paul und das Buch der Bücher. Zur Poetisierung biblischer Metaphern, Texte und Konzepte (Hildesheim: Olms, 2015)

Web Links

https://annotext.dartmouth.edu/texts?language_id=10000

Rede des toten Christus vom Weltgebäude herab, dass kein Gott sei in German; click on a word for the English translation

https://18thcparatext.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/jean-paul-from-rags-to-print/#more-291

Jean Paul: From Rags to Print. Blog entry by Seán Williams