The earliest literary representations of the Undine fairy tale are Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's Undine. Eine Erzählung (1811) and E. T. A. Hoffmann's opera Undine. Zauberopera in drei Akten (1812–14). Tchaikovsky wrote and destroyed an opera on the theme (1869). In the 20th century reworkings include Jean Giraudoux's Ondine (1938), Hans Werner Henze's ballet Undine (1956), and Ingeborg Bachmann's ‘Undine geht’ (1961).
The Undine plot involves a water sprite who surfaces to marry a human being to gain a soul, which elemental spirits do not have. Her marriage with the knight Huldbrand ends badly on account of Huldbrand's indiscretion in marrying his ex‐girlfriend after Undine has returned to the water, on the one hand, and the intercession of Undine's cranky water sprite uncle Kühleborn, who tells her she must kill her husband as a consequence, on the other.
The Kühleborn character remains enigmatic because of the motive behind his mean rules. In Fouqué's version, he seems concerned that his niece will be betrayed in love; in Hoffmann's version, an implication of vengeance exists because Undine had been an important figure in the water sprite world and had been stolen, although her parents sent her earthward.
Undine tales are based on traditional mermaid stories, but especially Paracelsus' treatise on nymphs. The tales emphasize the taboo of boundary violation between the elemental realms of earth, air, fire, and water, with water being a privileged element. In Undine's 20th‐century transformations, the privilege of water comes to represent art, an interpretation already implicit in Hoffmann's gorgeous descriptions of the watery world.
Bibliography
- Fassbind‐Eigenheer, Ruth, Undine oder die nasse Grenze zwischen mir und mir (1994).
— William Crisman
