"Zugleich diese gute Statt [...] ihre Seel und Leben gleichsamb auß dem Weser=trafiquen habend": die Weser als Gegenstand literarisch-rhetorischer Bemühungen (1550 - 1685 - 1760 - 1796)

Abstract

From ancient times to the present, rivers have been a popular literary theme and motif. The river can be understood as an image of unceasing movement, as a connective or divisive element, as a source of fertility and prosperity through trade, but also as one of danger. The Weser is one of the many rivers of Germany to have been commemorated in literature, as is illustrated here with the aid of examples from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The German humanist Felix Fi(e)dler’s 1550 cycle on the rivers of his native country forms the point of departure for this discussion. With his poetic description of the Weser, Fi(e)dler left a striking monument to posterity which reflects his knowledge of the literature of antiquity. It was from this age-old literature that he drew his information about the disputes between the Romans and the Teutons thought to have taken place on and near the Weser. Here the river is ascribed a Germanic, "national" element which would also play a role in its later depictions. In the academic speech of 1685 by Nicolaus Mindemann of Bremen, this use of antique literature as an orientation and the emphasis on the historical significance of the Weser as a "German river" recede into the background in favour of a focus on geographical-topographic and economic aspects. For Mindemann, the Weser is the source of trade carried out in Bremen, and hence of the city’s well-being. Here the processing of the river as a literary theme is combined with a eulogy of the city of Bremen in a form reminiscent of a "Städtelob" (speech or song in praise of a city). In his poem Die Weser of 1760, on the other hand, Michael Conrad Curtius directed his attention once again to the “national” element, prompted by the events of his day. Finally, at the end of the eighteenth century, this element underwent negative reinterpretation in Schiller’s Weser epigram from the Xenia. Here the Germanic-national aspect stands for darkness and lack of civilization in contrast to the brightness of antiquity. In Schiller’s work, the Weser’s character as a "German river" - frequently referred to in literature even of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - and as the symbol of a national myth is satirically contradicted.