Sturm’s first novella, which is also his famous work, is Immensee (1850), which was translated into Chinese during the May Fourth Movement. The novel narrates an unfortunate love story. The work uses first-person and flashback techniques, using flashbacks to connect the protagonist's past and present. The content of the flashbacks constitutes the main plot of the work, but the beginning and end of the novel are "now". They form the frame of the "past". This "frame structure" is also a technique that Strom loves to use. The purpose is to "compare the present and the past" and create emotional melancholy, nostalgia, pain and sentimentality.
His other famous novel "Paul the Puppet Player" (PoIe Poppenspieler, 1874) is similar in subject matter to "The Lake of Dreams". It is also a love story, but its ending is not sentimental but happy. of. The novel also uses Storm's usual first-person and flashback techniques. From the perspective of artistic effect, the advantage of the first person is that it makes readers feel familiar and helps the protagonist express his emotions. The period from 1840 to 1890 was the so-called poetic realism (Poetischer Realismus) period in the history of German literature. Many German writers of this period, including Sturm, were different from the Romantics who focused on describing the "night aspect" of life, and the Young Germans who advertised themselves as "literary tendencies". They were also different from the latter. It is different from the naturalists who make trivial and mechanical descriptions of social life. They face life and reality, but due to the slow development of German society and the political weakness of the bourgeoisie, most of them can only objectively reflect the part of reality they are exposed to, intentionally or unintentionally avoiding major social and political themes. Trying to find the so-called poetry from ordinary things, but lacking far-reaching vision and ambition. According to some theorists at the time, there are poetic elements or moments (einzelne Momente von poetischem Interesse) even in extremely poor daily life. The writer should limit and focus his attention on these factors and moments, thereby reproducing a certain poetic aspect (eine poetische Seite) of a banal social phenomenon.
Poetic realist writers have realized these propositions to varying degrees and created a large number of excellent works. Although most of these works avoid the major struggles of the times and society and have a relatively narrow contact with life, they do not lack the depth of reflecting reality in some parts. They are also deliberately diligent in the art of writing, so they are full of great expressive power and Strong appeal. Most of the writers of this period were good at writing lyric poems and short stories (novelles), and the latter's achievements were even more outstanding. In the history of the development of short stories in German, it reached an unprecedented peak at this time. As a small branch of the realist trend that was emerging throughout Europe at that time, German poetic realism had its own specialties and achievements that cannot be ignored, and produced some world-influential writers such as Keller, Sturm, and Fontana. . At this point, we will naturally ask questions: What are the specific characteristics of Sturm's novels? What exactly makes them excellent works and has been loved by readers from all over the world for a long time?
According to the writer's changes in circumstances and ideological development, we generally divide his novel creation into three periods: early, middle and late. However, between these three periods, some common characteristics throughout are very obvious.
Let’s first talk about the ideological content of the work. Like most poetic realist writers, Stum also intentionally or unintentionally avoided the major struggles of the times and society in his creations, and devoted himself to finding the so-called poetry from the ordinary lives of ordinary people. Most of his novels deal with love, marriage and family life, and the protagonists are ordinary people such as citizens, college students, craftsmen, farmers, and small and medium-sized bourgeoisie in urban and rural areas.
When we reviewed St. Thomas in the past, almost without exception, we judged his works to be "mostly limited to personal life and family, and did not touch on the major social and political issues of the time." shortcomings, and based on this, hastily and hastily concluded that Sturm's works are not profound and classic enough. Countless examples in the history of Chinese and foreign literature prove that this is incorrect; it should be noted that whether a work is profound and classic does not depend on what the writer writes, but on how he writes. After a more careful study of Sturm's main works and their circulation, the author believes that he mostly writes about love, marriage, and family life, which may be the reason why he is loved by so many readers. Although this kind of subject matter is ordinary, it is familiar to readers, so it is not easy to write well; but as long as it is written well, it can touch the hearts of thousands of readers of all ages and different nationalities, because love, marriage and family issues, it goes without saying that they have The universal significance transcends time and borders and is easy to be understood and accepted by readers. On the whole, Stum's creation is undoubtedly successful and has reached considerable depth in reflecting social life. The author says this for the following two reasons: First, Shi Duumu uses the themes of love, marriage and family to write about social changes and reflect the style of the times.
This is true in representative works that have a broader social life background, such as "The Lake of Dreams", "In College", "The Puppet Show", "Kirsch and Sons", "The Man with Two Shadows" and "The Rider on the White Horse". 》, it is very clear. They either reflect the changes in interpersonal relationships during the transition period from feudal patriarchal society to capitalist society, or write about the struggle between old and new ideas. It is precisely for this reason that this type of work has attracted more attention from us in the past. Second, even in some works that seem to only deal with personal life and family relationships, Stum also discusses issues such as ethics, morality, the meaning of life, and family education, giving the works richer connotations. This type of works, such as "Late Blooming Rose", "Swan Language", "Three-Colored Stepmother Flower", "A Silent Musician" and "Confession", also have profound meanings. In addition to the above two types of novels, Sturm has indeed written some short stories that can only be regarded as sketches of life scenes. But on the whole, his creations really reflect the German society in the second half of the 19th century, especially the social scene in some remote areas; each of his masterpieces is nothing more than a picture of the German patriarchal society in the capital. Wonderful style paintings of the period of disintegration under the impact of socialism. In the past, we often thought their moods were low and gloomy, but this was inevitably caused by the era and environment in which the author lived, and exactly reflected the social reality after the failure of the 1848 revolution and the psychological state of ordinary intellectuals. We have no reason to judge German writers who lived in the nineteenth century by today's standards. How could Sturm write the novel so poetically?
In addition to the fact that he is a lyric poet and has the talent of a poet, so his writing often reveals rich and passionate emotions, the author thinks there are other The following reasons: Stum often writes about his own experience, that is, the part of reality that he can come into contact with. For example, Elizabeth in "The Lake" and Jenny in "She Came from Beyond the Ocean" are both the incarnations of a girl named Berta whom he fell in love with when he was young; and "A Silent Man" "Musician", in Stum's own words, "came from the most sacred depth of my own soul. This silent musician is my beloved son..." Moreover, most of the places where the story takes place On the coast of the North Sea, many novels (such as "Yan Yu" and "Double Shadow Man") are filled with nostalgia for hometown, which is a reflection of Sturm's own state of mind who loves his homeland and has been living in a foreign country for a long time. Emotion is the life of poetry; Stum's successful works are all written with deep affection, and the poetic flavor emerges spontaneously.
Sturm was born on September 14, 1817 in Husum, a small town on the North Sea in Schleswig-Holstein, which was under Danish rule at the time. My ancestors have been farmers for generations, and my father is a lawyer. In 1837, he entered university to study law. After graduation, he returned to his hometown to open a law firm. At the same time, he began to collect and organize folk songs, proverbs, legends and fairy tales from his hometown, and wrote some lyric poems with a pastoral mood. In 1848, he published his first novel "Marte and Her Watch". He remained a bystander to the bourgeois revolution that swept through Germany and the whole of Europe in 1848, but paid attention to the struggle of the people of Schleswig-Holstein against Danish rule that broke out in the same year. During this period, he also broke through the narrow personal and family circles and created some works full of patriotic passion. Such as the lyric poems "Easter 1848", "In the Autumn of 1850" and "Farewell" (1853), the short story "A Green Leaf" (1853), etc. The novella "Immon Lake" published in 1850 won Storm's reputation as a novelist.
In 1853, the Schleswig-Holstein people's uprising failed. Strom was disqualified as a lawyer by the Danish rulers and had to leave his hometown. First, he worked as a voluntary court judge in Potsdam for three years. He relied solely on his father's financial support and the remuneration from his own writing to support his family's livelihood. In 1856, he moved to Heiligenstadt and obtained the position of county judge. Strom spent 10 years in exile in Prussia and had a deep understanding of the dark and decadent society under the rule of the Junker aristocracy. Realism elements were obviously added to his creations. During this period, he met famous writers Eichendorf, Merik, Fontana and Heise, etc., and wrote the novella "At the University" (1863) and other works.
In 1864, the Danes were expelled, and Strom returned to his hometown as chief executive. After Schleswig-Holstein was annexed to Prussia, he became a judge at the Husum court. Strom has local democratic ideas and believes that "the nobility (like the church) is a poison in the blood vessels of the nation" and is extremely dissatisfied with the "shameless Junker rule" and "Bismarck's gangster policy". He gradually withdrew from political life, moved to the village of Hardmarshen in 1880, and devoted himself to writing. Died on July 4, 1888.
Discovering poetry in ordinary reality
But equally important, it is Stum who strives to practice his idea of ??discovering poetry in ordinary reality, and firmly believes that as long as the writer has enough With his skill, he can also create "the highest poetry" in the form of novels and short stories. Therefore, he devoted his whole life to the creation of medium and short stories, but refused the persuasion of his friends and did not write any long stories. In his works, he often writes about kind people, ordinary and ordinary people; he often writes about their beautiful emotions, such as love, friendship, longing for and love for his hometown, etc.
But it is precisely because of being ordinary and ordinary that we feel familiar and cordial when reading it; precisely because of kindness and beauty, we will unknowingly have a feeling of excitement and be infected. In addition, Shi Dumu is indeed very powerful, and every time we finish reading One of his masterpieces will naturally give you the feeling of being tipsy or even intoxicated after reading a good poem. All of the above make Stum's successful works full of poetic charm and full of poetry. In short, Sturm deserves to be an outstanding representative of the so-called poetic realism unique in German literature; his works can indeed be called poetic novels. In the German language, in short stories and even in the world, among short stories, Sturm's works have their own distinctive personality and characteristics. Because of these characteristics, they have been spread in the past and are still valued today.