Born: Albert Bitzius in Murten, Switzerland, 4 October 1797. Education: Studied theology at Berne Academy, 1814-20; Gottingen University, for one year. Family: Married Henriette Elisabeth Zeender in 1833. Career: Ordained in 1820; curate, Utzenstorf, 1820, and 1822-24; Herzongenbuchsee, 1824-29, transferred to Berne, 1829-31; pastor, Lutzelfluh, Emmental, 1832; school commissioner and founder of educational institute for poor boys, 1835-45. Suffered from heart disease, apoplexy, and dropsy in the 1850s. Died: 22 October 1854.
Publications
Collections
Gesammelte Schriften. 24 vols., 1856-58.
Ausgewahlte Erzahlungen, edited by Adolf Bartels. 4 vols., 1907.
Samtliche Werke, edited by Rudolph Hunziker and Hans Bloesch. 24 vols., 1911-59.
Werke, edited by Walter Muschg. 20 vols., 1948-53.
Werke, edited by Henri Poschmann. 1971.
Schwanke und Witze, edited by Eduard Strubin. 1986.
Fiction
Der Bauernspiegel; oder, Lebensgeschichte des Jeremias Gotthelf. 1837; as The Mirror of Peasants, translated by Mary Augusta Ward, in Macmillans Magazine, 1883.
Wie fUnf Madchen im Branntwein jammerlich umkamen. 1838.
Leiden und Freuden eines Schuhneisters. 1839; as The Joys and Griefs of a National Schoolmaster, translated by Mary Augusta Ward, in Macmillans Magazine, 1883; as The Joys and Sorrows of a Schoolmaster, 1864.
Dursli, der Brannteweinsaufer; oder, der Heilige Weihnachtsabend. 1839.
Wie Uli der Knecht glucklich wird. 1841; as Uli der Knecht, 1846; as Ulric the Farm-Servant, translated by Julia Firth, 1866.
Ein Sylvester-Traum (stories). 1842.
Bilder und Sagen aus der Schweiz (stories). 6 vols., 1842-46.
Anne Babi Jowager. 1843-44.
Geld und Geist; oder, die Versohnung. 1843; as Wealth and Welfare, 1866; as Soul and Money, translated by Julia Guarterick Vere, 1872.
Eines Schweizers Wort an den Schweizerischen Schutzenverein. 1844.
Wie Christen eine Frau gewinnt. 1845.
Der Gelstag; oder, Die Wirthschaft nach tier neuen Mode. 1846.
Der Knabe des Tell. 1846.
Jakobs, des Handwerksgesellen, Wanderungen durch die Schweiz. 2 vols., 1846-48.
Kathi die Grossmutter. 1847; as The Story of an Alpine Valley; or, Katie the Grandmother, translated by L.G. Smith, 1896.
Hans Joggeli der Erbvetter. 1848.
Uli der Pachter. 1849.
Doctor Dorbach, der WUhler und die BUrglenherren in der heiligen Weihnachtsnacht Anno 1847. 1849.
Die Kaserei in der Vehfreude. 1850.
Erzahlungen und Bilder aus dem Volksleben der Schweiz. 1850-55.
Hans Jakob und Heiri; oder, die beiden Seidenweber. 1851.
Die Erbbase; oder, Freunde in der Not gehen hundert auf en Lot. 1851.
Zeitgeist und Berner Geist. 1852.
Der Patrizierspiegel. 1853.
Erlebnisse eines Schuldenbauers. 1854.
Das Erdbeeri Mareili. 1858.
Elsi, die seltsame Magd. 1858.
Die Schwarze Spinne. 1917; as The Black Spider, translated by Mary Hottinger, in Nineteenth Century German Tales, 1958; also translated by H.M. Waidson, 1958.
Der Schwarze Spinne und andere Erzahlungen (stories). 1970.
Other
Bericht uber Gemeinde Utzenstorf. 1824.
Benz am Weihnachtdonnstag. 1825.
Zum Bollodingeer Schulstreit. 1829.
Aufruf der BUrgerschaft von Bern an die Landschaft. 1830.
Bericht Uber die Schulen von LatzelflUh und das Erziehungsdepartment. 1832.
Bettagspredigt fUr die eidgenossischen Regenten, welche weder in den Kirchen noch in den Herzen den eidgenossischen Bettag mit den eidgenossischen Christen feiern. 1839.
Die Armennoth. 1840.
Verfasser ins Hoehdeutsche Ubertragne Ausgabe. 1846.
Durchgesehene Uber mit einem Schlusskapitel vermehrte Aufl. 1851.
Jeremias Gotthelf und Karl Rudolf Hegenbach; ihr Briefwechsel aus den Jahren 1841 bis 1853, edited by Ferdinand Vetter. 1910.
Uzwil. 1923.
Langensalza. 1923.
Familienbriefe Jeremias Gotthelf, edited by Hedwig Waber. 1929.
Donauworth. 1931.
Critical Studies:
The Rural Novel: Jeremias Gotthelf, Thomas Hardy and C.R. Ramuz by Michael H. Parkinson, 1984; Narrative Strategies in the Novels of Jeremias Gotthelf by Robert Godwin-Jones, 1986; Three Swiss Realists: Gotthelf, Keller, and Meyer by Robert Godwin-Jones and Margaret T. Peischl, 1988.
Jeremias Gotthelf was considered by Gottfried Keller an epic genius, and has come to be recognized as a great epic writer not only in German-speaking countries but worldwide. Ernst Alker, the German literary critic, even goes so far as to classify Gotthelf with Cervantes, Tolstoi, Dickens, and Homer. Alker considers Gotthelf more than a great novelist, seeing him as a man who created a new world in his poetical works. In his realism, Gotthelf is furthermore the forerunner of German naturalism as found in the latter half of the 19th century.
Gotthelf, who is often referred to as the classical writer of Dorfgeschichten and Heimatkunst or regional literature, actually belongs to the school of German realism. A Swiss Protestant pastor, he portrayed a narrow segment of his native Switzerland: the peasants of the Bernese hinterland, among whom he spent his entire life. Like his more famous contemporaries, Gotthelf attempted to portray real human beings with all their shortcomings and deficiencies. Gotthelf took his figures, as Dickens did, from definite walks of life, and specifically from the region he knew best, the Swiss Bernbiet (Bern region) with its farming population. He often wrote the dialogue in his novels in local dialect. Like Dickens too, Gotthelf had a weakness for moralizing; this is not surprising, since Gotthelf was greatly influenced by the teachings of his countryman, Johann Heinrick Pestalozzi, the Swiss educationist.
Education is one of the main themes in Gotthelf’s first novel, Der Bauernspiegel; oder, Lebensgeschichte des Jeremias Gotthelf (The Mirror of Peasants). This novel was written in the form of a fictional autobiography and shows the development of a young orphan from farmers’ helper to freelance writer. In this work, Gotthelf attacks social prejudice, drawing on his own experience of paupers’ establishments, and shows, through the character of the boy Jeremias, how poverty leads to crime. Jeremias is eventually saved from final degradation as a mercenary in a foreign army; yet on his return home, a changed man, he cannot find employment. It was Gotthelf’s aim to open people’s eyes to reality and to make the peasants in the canton of Berne aware of the social inequities within their parish. Gotthelf points the finger for these inequities and injustices not at a backward government but at man himself. Because of his indifference, his selfishness, his covetousness, and his lack of true Christian charity, man is his own enemy. The first part of the novel is vivid and forceful; the second part loses some of its elan and becomes somewhat theoretical.
The main impulse of Gotthelf’s second work, Leiden undFreuden eines Schulmeisters (The Joys and Sorrows of a Schoolmaster) shows the resentment of Peter Kiser, a man who refused to be a mere puppet as a member of a local school board. Like The Mirror of Peasants, it is written in the first person; it describes, transcending time and place, the pandemonium of a provincial school system.
Following these two early works, Gotthelf depicted the sunny side of peasant life in his novel Uli der Knecht (Ulric the Farm-Servant). It is a narrative in which Gotthelf shifts from first to third person narration, and becomes more objective and less didactic in his writing. Indeed, in this Entwicklungsroman (novel of character development), Gotthelf avoids all pedagogic tendencies and departs from the form of his first two novels. Ulric the Farm-Servant remains one of his most popular works, with its vivid characters and realistic detail, and eulogy of life on the land, the blessings of work, the triumph of the will, and purification through suffering. Here as elsewhere, Gotthelf is particularly successful in probing the depths of his female characters. He depicts village attitudes to marriage and pregnancy, drunkenness and duel fighting.
Uli der Pachter [Uli the Tenant], not a sequel to Ulric the Farm-Servant, is one of those stories in which Gotthelf could not refrain from sermonizing. Here Gotthelf revived the good old farmers’ customs, and poured venom on those of his countrymen who aped foreign fashions or gave up their ancient religion, Neither did he spare the intellectuals, whether teachers, physicians, or even parsons, and his criticism was blunt. Gotthelf always bore in mind that his village readers would never accept evasive words.
Christian humility and moderation appear as dominant concerns in the novel Hans Joggeli der Erbvetter [Hans Joggeli the Inheritor]. In this work, Gotthelf steers a middle course between asceticism and worldliness. Again, as in so many of his novels, he reveals his fascination with man and especially with man’s striving spiritual potential.
The most discussed and perhaps the greatest of Gotthelf’s works is the novella Die Schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider). It presents a colourful picture of rural life, a banquet reminiscent of a Homeric idyll. But this humorous description of the present is soon interrupted by an eruption from the solemn past, as an old farmer tells the story of his family, which has achieved prosperity by fighting the black spider. This spider was the progeny of a woman who called upon the devil for help, and defaulted on her promise to repay him by sending him a soul. The vengeful spider had thereupon killed everyone and everything in its way until the pious farmer caught it and imprisoned it in a hole in a beam. If any generation became too arrogant, the spider would, once again, find its way to freedom. Thus, in mythical manner and without direct sermonizing, Gotthelf points to piety as the basis of the village’s present prosperity. Inevitably the author’s own vocation as a pastor and his Christian world-view led to allegorical interpretations of the story based on Catholic doctrine denying the full beatific vision to the unbaptized. Rationalist interpreters saw in the black spider an unenlightened stage in the progressive development of man. The influence of psychoanalysis led later critics to see the black spider as a female mother-symbol. Probably none of these allegorical or one-sided interpretations does justice to Gotthelf’s poetic achievement. In broader terms, one can claim that in this work, Gotthelf depicts the world in a perilous situation. Humanity is constantly threatened. It is by no means established that evil is punished and good rewarded. So-called earthly justice is the work of fallible human hands. The devil can seize power in this world and the innocent are victimized along with the guilty. It seems to be a mystery of divine justice that only the sacrifice of the innocent has expiatory power. Gotthelf gains depth and perspective for his picture of well- to-do farmers by bringing in past crises and temptations. The Black Spider is short, but substantial and full of meaning. An entire nation is presented in its dependence on the heavenly powers, in a masterly story that has few equals.
Das Erdbeeri Mareili [Strawberry Mary] and Elsi, die seltsame Magd [Elsie, the Strange Farm Servant], are other masterpieces from Gotthelf’s pen. Both are rooted in history and present the Swiss environment realistically. Gotthelf’s work as a whole is proof of his love for the tiller of the soil and of his understanding of Swiss national particularities. Although he was inclined, at times, to sentimentalize rural life, the immediacy with which he describes it stands out in an age of emerging realism.
Over a span of 18 years, Gotthelf wrote more than 12 long novels and over 50 separate works; in the last years of his life he was swamped with requests for novels, short stories, and anecdotes for all manner of publications. In later life he also became increasingly concerned with politics, often to the detriment of the broad, flowing style of his novels. Gotthelf restricted himself to narrative fiction: he produced no rhymed poems or ballads and he scarcely considered writing a drama, though he was acquainted with the works of Schiller and Shakespeare. The stories of his maturity, particularly the shorter ones, show great skill in construction; their language is lively and full of vivid images, a blend of dialect forms and standard constructions, reflecting his desire to fuse the elevated world of the Bible with the real world of the canton of Berne and to make the many Bernese dialects serve the purposes of art.
