Jeremias Gotthelf

Gotthelf, Jeremias, pseudonym and now universally accepted designation of Albert Bitzius (Murten, 1797-1854, Lützelflüh nr. Berne), Swiss pastor and novelist. The son of a pastor, Gotthelf was at school in Berne, where he subsequently studied theology. After ordination in 1820 he was for a short time his father's curate at Utzenstorf, and then spent a year of further study at Göttingen University. He returned to assist his father again in 1822, but when the father died in 1824 he was, to his bitter disappointment, passed over for the living. He was next curate in Herzogenbuchsee, where his reforming temper brought him into conflict with the authorities, and in 1829 he was transferred to Berne. Two years later he was sent as curate to the remote village of Lützelflüh in the Emmental, becoming pastor there in 1832, and marrying in the following year. It was in Lützelflüh that he spent the remainder of his life and wrote his novels.

Gotthelf found his vocation as a novelist in 1836, when he wrote with great rapidity the powerful and gloomy didactic story of Swiss peasant life, Der Bauernspiegel (1837). For all his subsequent novels he used as his pseudonym the name of Jeremias Gotthelf, the principal character of this story, who purported also to be its narrator. From this time on, while still active as pastor of Lützelflüh, Gotthelf wrote and published a series of Swiss rural novels marked by strong social commitment, a vivid eye for character, detailed psychological penetration, and a concise, relaxed, and yet forceful style. Leiden und Freuden eines Schulmeisters (2 vols., 1838-9) grew out of his preoccupation with education. Wie Uli der Knecht glücklich wird (1841), a novel of back-slidings and renewed resolve, ends in achievement, and this optimistic tone persists in its belated sequel Uli der Pächter (1849).

Meanwhile Gotthelf had written the two great novels Wie Anne Bäbi Jowäger haushaltet (2 vols., 1843-4) and Geld und Geist (3 vols., 1843-4). To these he later added Der Geltstag (1845), Käthi die Großmutter (2 vols., 1847), Die Käserei in der Vehfreude (1850), Zeitgeist und Berner Geist (2 vols., 1853), and Erlebnisse eines Schuldenbauers (1853). Gotthelf was equally successful with shorter stories and Novellen, publishing the collections Bilder und Sagen aus der Schweiz (6 vols., 1842-6), Hans Joggeli der Erbvetter (1848), and Erzählungen und Bilder aus dem Volksleben der Schweiz (5 vols., 1850-5). Among the large number of impressive Novellen, best known are Die schwarze Spinne (1842 in Bilder und Sagen aus der Schweiz) and Elsi, die seltsame Magd (1843, later included in Erzählungen und Bilder).

Gotthelf's burning interest in the welfare of the peasantry prompted him also to undisguised political and social writing, of which the most notable example is the long essay Die Armennot (1840). He continued to write uninterruptedly until his death in 1854, brought about by dropsy. Although well known in his own day in Switzerland, his writings did not at first make an impact on the wider German public, though a collected edition, Gesammelte Schriften (24 vols.), was published in Berlin, 1855-8.

Gotthelf's reputation has risen rapidly in the 20th c. His avowed didactic purpose may seem at first homespun and his range of environment parochial, but his infallible sense for character, his instinctive grasp of emotion and motivation, his natural gift for story-telling, and his racy, dialect-touched style make him one of the most readable of German novelists; one who, seemingly without effort, creates a world in all its particulars.

R. Hunziker and H. Bloesch et al. edited Gesamtausgabe (24 vols. with 18 supplementary vols., 1911-77.); a select edition, Jeremias Gotthelfs Werke (20 vols.), ed. W. Muschg, appeared in 1948-53.

Jeremias Gotthelf

Albert Bitzius (October 4, 1797 – October 22, 1854), Swiss novelist, best known by his pen name of Jeremias Gotthelf, was born at Murten, where his father was pastor.

In 1804 the home was moved to Utzenstorf, a village in the Bernese Emmental. Here young Bitzius grew up, receiving his early education and consorting with the boys of the village, as well as helping his father to cultivate his glebe. In 1812 he went to complete his education at Bern, and in 1820 was received as a pastor. In 1821 he visited the University of Göttingen, but returned home in 1822 to act as his father's assistant. On his father's death (1824) he went in the same capacity to Herzogen buchsee, and later to Bern (1829). Early in 1831 he went as assistant to the aged pastor of the village of Lützelflüh, in the Upper Emmenthal (between Langnau and Burgdorf), being soon elected his successor (1832) and marrying one of his granddaughters (1833). He spent the rest of his life there, leaving three children (the son was a pastor, the two daughters married pastors).

His first work, the Bauernspiegel, appeared in 1837. It purported to be the life of Jeremias Gotthelf, narrated by himself, and this name was later adopted by the author as his pen name. It is a living picture of Bernese (or, strictly speaking, Emmenthal) village life, true to nature, and not attempting to gloss over its defects and failings. It is written (like the rest of his works) in German, but contains expressions from the Bernese dialect of the Emmenthal, though it must be remembered that Bitzius was not (like Auerbach) a peasant by birth, but belonged to the educated classes, so that he reproduces what he had seen and learnt, and not what he had himself personally experienced. The book was a great success, as it was a picture of real life, and not of fancifully beribboned eighteenth-century villagers.

His best known work is without doubt the short novel Die Schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider), a semi-allegorical tale of the plague in form of the titular monster that devastates a Swiss valley community; first as a result of a pact with the devil born out of need and a second time due to the moral decay that releases the monster from its prison again.

Among his later tales are the Leiden und Freuden eines Schulmeisters (1838-1839), Uli der Knecht (1841), with its continuation, Uli der Pächter (1849), Anne-Bäbi Jowäger (1843-1844), Käthi, die Großmutter (1846), Die Käserei in der Vehfreude (1850), and the Erlebnisse eines Schuldenbauers (1853). He also published several volumes of shorter tales.

One slight drawback to some of his writings is the echo of local political controversies, for Bitzius was a Whig and strongly opposed to the Radical party in the canton, which carried the day in 1846.

He died on October 22, 1854 in Lützelflüh in Canton of Bern.

Commemorative plaque at his birth house in Murten/Morat

In the novel 2666 by Roberto Bolaño Gotthelf is mentioned as the subject of the novel Bitzius:

(...) and in Bitzius, a novel less than one hundred pages long, similar in some ways to Mitzi's Treasure, (...) and that told the story of the life of Albert Bitzius, pastor of Lützelflüh, in the canton of Bern, an author of sermons as well as a writer under the pseudonym Jeremias Gotthelf. ^[1]

Lives by C. Manuel, in the Berlin edition of Bitzius's works (Berlin, 1861), and by J. Ammann in vol. i. (Bern, 1884) of time Sammlung Bernischer Biographien. His works were issued in 24 vols. at Berlin, 1856-1861, while 10 vols., giving the original text of each story, were issued at Bern, 1898-1900.

References

1. ^ Roberto Bolaño: 2666 - A Novel, translated by Natasha Wimmer, New York 2008, p. 6

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The article is available here.

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