TABLE
OF CONTENTS THE
'FANNY ESSLER' PSEUDONYM TITLE/MAIN
PAGE
In
the 1905 Fanny Essler novel describing Else's life and loves in Berlin in the 1880s, there are numerous intertextual
references to passages of symbolic significance in Flaubert's Madame
Bovary, so it comes as no surprise that Greve admired
the French author to the point of wanting to be like
him as much in art as in life. Or, as Else so aptly puts
it, he "esteemed Flaubert
highly as stylist...so, he tried to be Flaubert" (Ab
34/35; emphasis hers). Heroine Fanny's death scene from malaria,
for instance, documents in minute detail the medical symptoms
and the exact course of the fatal illness. It is a transparent imitation of
the similarly precise and realistic description of Emma Bovary's
death from arsenic poison.
Greve's novel ends at
precisely the time when Greve was arrested in real life
in May 1903. The epilogue states that by her untimely death Fanny was spared
the worst disappointment of her life, which is more than one can say for Else.
With Barrel/Endell's suicide after Fanny/Else's & Reelen/Greve's
massive betrayal, this ending is the most significant departure
from biographical facts in the novel.
Far
more important than the Flaubert emulation is Else's testimony
concerning her role in the genesis of "Greve's" two
novels about her. Two relevant passages concerning them in
her autobiography illustrate the more or less subtle
process by which Greve made use of her biographical material.
First,
Else states that she had
"already
begun to write a story of my childhood -- from sheer
ennui-urge of own inner occupation -- interest that
he himself promptly contradicted as a 'swelled head'[30] in ironical derision on account
of my literary attempt that he regarded shoulder-shruggingly
contemptuous -- but with leniency, since he could
not hinder it, in a sense of 'Let the child -- or
silly female -- have her play..." (Ab 105).
That "story
of (her) childhood" was published as Greve's
second novel Maurermeister Ihles Haus. Like Fanny
Essler, it is entirely based on Else's experiences,
but covers her early years until she moves to Berlin
at age eighteen. The following passage confirms that
the fictionalized rendering of her adult years --
and the concurrent Fanny Essler poems by extension
-- was governed by an identical mechanism:
"Felix
had written two novels. They were dedicated to me
in so far (ms.: "dictated by me as far...")
as material was concerned; it was my life and
persons out of my life. He did the executive part
of the business, giving the thing the conventional
shape and dress...He took it all outwardly
as mere industry, except for the material in
it. They must be fearful books as far as art is concerned." (Ab
35, emphasis mine).
Particularly
noteworthy is her emphasis on his technical skills.
She adds that she cannot bring herself to re-read
them at the time of writing nearly twenty years later,
and that she disliked their style à la Flaubert
even then, which opinion Greve smugly "put down
to [her] not yet enough developed intellect and taste" (p.
35). Talking about Fanny Essler, Markus Behmer
comments to Else's former lover Ernst Hardt (Ehrhard
Stein in the novel)[31] that Greve was prostituting her in it:
"Fanny
Essler ist ja fabelhaft: wenn Else Ti solange keine
Hure geworden ist, trotz ihrer hurenhaften Natur,
so hat sie nun endlich ihren Louis gefunden, der
sie mehr prostituiert, als wenn er sie à 50
Pfennig besteigen liesse. -- Das Buch ist auch maaßlos
(sic!) frech, gegen die anderen Persönlichkeiten:
und es ist nicht viel gelesen worden? -- Sonderbar,
trotz dieser tierischen Gemeinheit?" (19.2.1907,
Hardt, 53).
However
nasty his comment, Behmer recognized that Else's
material had been exploited for Greve's benefit.
Greve was disappointed by his first novel's lack
of success, having hoped it would "at least
make as much impression as (Thomas Mann's) Buddenbrooks" (Ab
35). Else partially agrees with Greve: "...though
they are not art, and though pretentious, yet there
are scores and scores of books that are considered
'literature' much worse...for instance, to name one
example, 'Peter Camenzind' by Hermann Hesse" (Ab
37).
In
analogy with Else's report of Greve's condescension
towards her embryonic childhood story and his clever
literary transformation of her biographical material
into two novels of his own, it can safely be assumed
that she conceived and penned prototype
versions of the 'Fanny Essler' poems on the three
occasions she described in her autobiography, and
that he "did
the executive part of the business, giving the
thing the conventional shape and dress" (Ab
35). He took the matter in his expert hands, polished
the poems into their symmetric formal perfection,
included the visual evocation of medieval wing-altars,
introduced the Petrarchan intertextual references
in the central sonnets, and managed to place the
results through personal acquaintance with Friedrich
Huch or Alexander von Bernus in Die
Freistatt.
It
is indeed revealing that his earliest known translations
are six sonnets from Dante's Vita
Nuova dating back to 1898 (Stefan George
Archiv, Stuttgart), and that there exists a beautifully
crafted double sonnet with the title "Retrospection" in
Grove's typed "Miscellaneous poems" (UMA,
Mss2, Box 18, Fd. 24; PEd., 182-183). The authorship
of the seven 'Fanny Essler' poems can therefore
neither be attributed to Greve nor Else alone.
They
collaborated within the framework of a fairly obvious
division of labour: she provided Greve with the raw
material of her rich, biographical experience in
some kind of admittedly unpolished form, he applied
his remarkable forming and marketing talents. For
the novels, Else received no credit for her contribution
whatsoever. For the poems, she was at least indirectly,
if insufficiently, acknowledged by using a woman's
name for the joint pseudonym.[32]
Why
the choice of this particular name for the
poems and the novel's title? It is likely that
Greve intended to confuse the reading public by its
proximity to Fanny Elssler, the name of a
famous Viennese dancer (1810-1884) who
was receiving much attention at the time in various
memoirs and biographies.
Note
that both
family names, Essler and Elssler, contain "Else".
Fanny Elssler's first name was really Franziska
which provides further, and direct links
to the artistic scene in Munich: Franziska Gräfin
von Reventlow's (1871-1918) official given
name was Fanny which she continued to use
in her diaries and correspondence. She
was renowned for her unconventional lifestyle,
including single parenthood. She was affiliated
with the cerebral Klages, the gregarious Wolfskehl
and many others, and there is evidence
that both Greve and Else knew her, though at
different times.[33]
She
had published her autobiographical novel Ellen
Olestjerne in 1903.
Its focus on childhood and early adolescence
closely matches the scope of Maurermeister
Ihles Haus (1906). However, Fanny
Essler was a timely parallel to Reventlow's
similar, real-life experiences in Munich.
As a roman-à-clef
of the group surrounding Stefan George
in Berlin, it is more closely related
to Reventlow's later fragment, Herrn
Dames Aufzeichnungen (1913). Franziska-Fanny
was, incidentally, born and raised in
Husum, which strongly suggests that the
opening line of Fanny Essler's sixth
& second last poem, "Und
hinter Husum hin die Sonne schwand..." (PEd
45, st.1, l. 1), is a deliberate reference
to Reventlow's background.
NOTES:
[30]This
expression is also used several times in Grove's correspondence
(113), and apparently related to his Swift ventures: "...it
will be a wonder if I don't, like Swift, get the swelled
head." Pacey (114) believes that it stems from The
Tale of a Tub which Greve translated in the four
large volumes of the author's Prosa
Werke, 1909/10.
[31]Hardt's
play Der Kampf ums Rosenrote (1903), where Else
appears as Käthe (Spettigue, 1992, p. 14), is persiflaged
as Der Kampf ums Veilchenblaue in Fanny Essler (p.
344), and Else, in her very
witty fragment about her stormy affair with him in 1898,
calls it Der Zank ums Zuckersüsse.
[32]Upon
the publication of Greve's, Grove's and Fanny Essler's
poetry (Poems/Gedichte, Dec., 1993), the National
Library has accepted it as such, with cross-references
from Greve/Grove and Freytag-Loringhoven.
[33]The
archaeologist Herbert Koch comments to Reventlow about Fanny
Essler, noting that they and Helene Klages are "not
yet" represented in it. His judgement: "...arg
talentlos und etwas gemein" (Stadtarchiv München,
communicated by Irene Gammel, 7.1994).
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