Undine (novella)
Cover of Undine | |
Author | Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué |
---|---|
Country | Germany |
Language | German |
Genre | Novella |
Publication date | 1811 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Undine is a fairy-tale novella (Erzählung) by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in which Undine, a water spirit, marries a knight named Huldebrand in order to gain a soul. It is an early German romance, which has been translated into English and other languages.
Contents
1 Success and influence
2 Adaptations
2.1 Opera
2.2 Music
2.3 Ballet
2.4 Film
2.5 Literature
2.6 Art
3 References
4 External links
Success and influence
During the nineteenth century the book was very popular and was, according to The Times in 1843, "a book which, of all others, if you ask for it at a foreign library, you are sure to find engaged".[1] The story is descended from Melusine, the French folk-tale of a water-sprite who marries a knight on condition that he shall never see her on Saturdays, when she resumes her mermaid shape. It was also inspired by works by the occultist Paracelsus.[2]
An unabridged English translation of the story by William Leonard Courtney and illustrated by Arthur Rackham was published in 1909[3]. George Macdonald thought Undine "the most beautiful" of all fairy stories,[4] while Lafcadio Hearn referred to Undine as a "fine German story" in his essay "The Value of the Supernatural in Fiction".[5] The references to Undine in such works as Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain and Louisa Alcott's Little Women show that it was one of the best loved of all books for many 19th-century children.
The first adaptation of Undine was E.T.A. Hoffmann's opera in 1814. It was a collaboration between E.T.A. Hoffman, who composed the score, and Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué who adapted his own work into a libretto. The opera proved highly successful, and Carl Maria von Weber admired it in his review as the kind of composition which the German desires: 'an art work complete in itself, in which partial contributions of the related and collaborating arts blend together, disappear, and, in disappearing, somehow form a new world'.[6][7]
In the 1830s, the novella was translated into Russian dactylic hexameter verse by the Romantic poet Vasily Zhukovsky. This verse translation became a classic in its own right and later provided the basis for the libretto to Tchaikovsky's operatic adaptation. The novella has since inspired numerous similar adaptions in various genres and traditions.
Adaptations
Opera
Undine, E.T.A. Hoffmann, 1814
Undine, Christian Friedrich Johann Girschner, 1830
Undine, Albert Lortzing, 1845
Undina, Alexei Lvov, 1846
Undina, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, 1869
Rusalka, Antonín Dvořák, 1901
Music
Sonata Undine, a Romantic sonata for flute and piano (in E-minor) by Carl Reinecke, 1882
Ondine, a movement in Gaspard de la Nuit by Maurice Ravel, 1908
Ondine, a piano prelude by Claude Debussy, 1911–1913
Undine, track 9 from the album Once I was an Eagle by Laura Marling, 2013
Ballet
Ondine, composed by Cesare Pugni and choreographed by Jules Perrot, 1843
Coralia, or the Inconstant Knight, choreographed by Paul Taglioni, 1847
Undine, composed by Hans Werner Henze and choreographed by Frederick Ashton, 1958
Film
Undine (film), a 1916 silent film
The Loves of Ondine, a film by Andy Warhol
Ondine, a film by Neil Jordan
Literature
Ondine, ou la Nymphe des Eaux, a play by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixerécourt, 1830- "Undina," a verse translation by Vasily Zhukovsky, 1837
Ondine, a poem by Aloysius Bertrand, 1842
Undine, an autobiographical book by Olive Schreiner, 1928
Ondine, a play by Jean Giraudoux, 1939
Undine geht by Ingeborg Bachmann
Haunted Waters, an adaptation for teen readers, by Mary Pope Osborne, 1994 (reissued 2006)
Art
Undine and Huldbrand, a painting by Henry Fuseli, 1819–1822
Undine, a painting by Moritz Retzsch, 1830
Undine, a painting by John William Waterhouse, 1872
Ondine, a painting by Paul Gauguin, 1889
Undine, a painting by Georges Fantin-Latour
Undine, a painting by Daniel Maclise
Undine, a painting by J.M.W. Turner
Undine, illustrations by Arthur Rackham
Ondine de Spa, a sculpture by Pouhon Pierre-Le-Grand
Undine with harp, a sculpture by Ludwig Michael von Schwanthaler, 1855
References
^ Au, Susan (1978). "The Shadow of Herself: Some Sources of Jules Perrot's "Ondine"". Dance Chronicle. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 2 (3): 160. doi:10.1080/01472527808568730. JSTOR 1567379..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
^ Strong, George Templeton. "Ondine • Suites Nos. 1 - 3". Retrieved 2008-05-16.
^ Undine by de la Motte-Fouqué adapted from the German by W.L. Courtney and illustrated by Arthur Rackham, London, William Heinemann, New-York, Doubleday, Page & Co, 1911. Read on line.
^ George Macdonald, "The Fantastic Imagination" in Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski, Fantasists on Fantasy. New York: Avon Discus, 1984. pp. 11-22.
^ Lafcadio Hearn, "The Value of the Supernatural in Fiction" in Jason Colavito, ed. A Hideous Bit of Morbidity: An Anthology of Horror Criticism from the Enlightenment to World War I. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. (p. 275 ).
^ Strunk, Oliver (1965). Source Readings in Music History: The Romantic Era. New York. p. 63. Archived from the original on 2005-05-02. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
^ Castein, Hanne (2000). "The Composer as Librettist: Judith Weir's 'Romantic' Operas Heaven Ablaze in His Breast and Blond Eckbert". Aurifex (1). Archived from the original on 2005-05-02. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
External links
- Undine at Project Gutenberg
- Undine, edited for children at Project Gutenberg
Undine public domain audiobook at LibriVox