Hauff, Wilhelm (1802–27), early 19th‐century German writer, one of the most popular German writers of literary fairy tales. Although his literary and editorial activities spanned little more than three years, he was extraordinarily productive. Hauff's stories rank just behind the Grimm brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Kinder‐ und Hausmärchen) in German language editions. His three fairy‐tale almanacs, containing 14 novella‐length tales, are as well known to German‐speaking audiences as Huckleberry Finn or Alice in Wonderland are to Anglophones.
In 1820, at the age of 18, Hauff undertook theological studies at Tübingen seminary. He received his Ph.D. in 1824 but was not disposed to become a parish pastor. For the next two years he worked as a tutor for the young sons of the Württemberg Minister of War, Baron von Hügel, and did freelance writing. He began modestly, in 1824, by editing a volume of War and Folksongs (Kriegs‐ und Volkslieder). Over the next three years, in addition to the three collections of fairy tales, the young writer produced numerous works demonstrating a remarkable range and variety: journal entries, letters, parodies, poems, sketches, half a dozen novellas, a two‐part Rabelaisian satirical novel, and a historical romance.
By 1826 he had earned enough money freelancing to undertake an extended educational tour through France, Flanders, and Germany. He made contacts with literary and intellectual circles in Paris, Hamburg, Bremen, Leipzig, and Berlin. Upon his return in 1827, after a four‐year courtship, Hauff married his cousin Luise. Hired by the publisher, J. F. (Baron von) Cotta as editor of the well‐established Morning Newspaper for the Educated Classes (Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände), Hauff undertook the difficult task of reforming and raising the intellectual level of the newspaper. But the autocratic publisher interfered with his editor, bypassing Hauff in important editorial decisions. Conflicts over editorial policy ensued, resulting in a stalemate. Hauff's older brother, Hermann, approached Cotta, offering to edit the paper in his brother's stead, and stating in a letter that he would prove more decorous and pliable than Wilhelm. Cotta granted the editorship, a position Hermann held for 37 years.
In September 1827 Wilhelm Hauff fell ill. He was bedridden by October, and he died in November of the same year, eight days after the birth of his daughter, Wilhelmine.
Hauff is best known for his literary fairy tales. He initially told the tales as entertainment for his two younger sisters and later, as a tutor for the von Hügel family, he continued storytelling for his two young charges. Their mother, the Baroness von Hügel, was impressed by his talent and encouraged Hauff to write his stories down. In late 1825 he published the first cycle, entitled The Caravan (Die Karawane). Two additional collections followed: The Sheik of Alexandria and his Slaves (Der Scheik von Alessandria und seine Sklaven) published in 1827, and The Inn in the Spessart (Das Wirtshaus im Spessart), published posthumously in 1828. Structured somewhat like Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, each cycle features not only multiple narrators, but also a frame tale in which the individual novellas are embedded.
Hauff's tales were greeted enthusiastically by his contemporaries and have continued to enjoy unabated popularity for close to two centuries. But, while puzzling over his popularity, academic critics have for the most part rejected them as the flawed reflection of Hauff's petty bourgeois and philistine spirit. However, recent studies have argued for a re‐evaluation of Hauff's tales as the work of a sophisticated cross‐writer who intentionally speaks to a dual audience of children and adults. In this view, Hauff's tales draw on traditional folk‐ and fairy‐tale motifs, and they evoke a magical world which allows for a childlike play of fantasy. But the writer also provides numerous clues signalling the possibility of a more complex and sophisticated ‘adult’ reading of Hauff's multi‐layered texts. The child is invited to engage the imagination; the adult is invited to recognize Hauff's concealed subversive and often critical intent.
In a brief preface to the first cycle of tales, a narrative entitled ‘Fairy Tale as Almanac’ (‘Märchen als Almanach’), Hauff signals his critical and subversive intent to bypass contemporary censorship laws: Fairy Tale has been barred entrance into the city by guards (censors) with sharp pens, who malign or even kill those who disagree with accepted opinions. To circumvent the censors, Fairy Tale dons a disguise, the fabulous cloak of ‘Almanac’. (Hauff referred to his three cycles as Almanacs.) Her true identity concealed, Fairy Tale lulls the guards to sleep with the images she evokes, and passes undetected. A sympathetic adult guides her to his house, where she can tell her tales to his children and the neighbourhood children, and thus carry out her subversive activities undisturbed.
As this allegorical preface suggests, the tales in the three collections interweave fantasy and finely wrought ironies in a marvellous and complex interplay. The frame tale frequently provides a critical foil for the tales. The multiple narrators in each cycle are played off against each other with consummate skill, while the individual narratives hover suggestively in that magical and ambiguous space between childhood innocence and adult experience.
Dwarf Long Nose (Der Zwerg Nase), one of Hauff's best‐known tales, appears to be a conventional tale in which a wicked witch takes revenge on a little boy. The Herb Fairy transforms little Jacob into an ugly dwarf because he has publicly derided her grotesque appearance. After a series of adventures, Jacob is restored to his human form and lives a contented life. The tale does not seem to swerve from the expected happy ending and restoration of order. However, on a different level, Jacob's knee‐jerk response to the stranger is representative of the prejudices of an entire community. The Herb Fairy, like the tale itself, is not quite what she seems. She is not a wicked witch, but a wise, if stringent, mentor who demonstrates to Jacob and the empathetic reader what it is like to walk in the shoes of the grotesque outsider. Jacob discovers the pain of ostracism as he is cast out by his parents, and rejected by the townspeople who fail to recognize him in his new incarnation. As Dwarf Long Nose, the formerly handsome Jacob discovers the injuriousness of the prejudices he had previously shared with his fellow townsfolk. Despite the restoration of order at the conclusion of the narrative, the child reader is left with the vivid impression of Jacob's suffering, while the adult is invited to recognize the mechanisms of prejudice, and to detect the irony of a ‘happy ending’ which does not resolve, but merely sets aside, the problems raised in the narrative.
In each of the collections, vivid tales evoke a fantasy world for children even as Hauff examines questions of social identity, criticizes provincial narrowness, and raises probing questions about communal prejudice. Unfortunately, there are very few translations of Hauff's tales into English. Thus, for most Anglophones, Hauff's 14 tales remain unexplored territory waiting to be discovered.
Bibliography
- Hinz, Ottmar, Wilhelm Hauff: Mit Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (1989).
- Schwarz, Egon, “‘Wilhelm Hauff: “Der Zwerg Nase”, “Das Kalte Herz” und andere Erzählungen (1826–27)’”, in Paul Michael Lützeler (ed.), Romane und Erzählungen zwischen Romantik und Realismus (1983).
- Thum, Maureen, ‘Misreading the Cross‐Writer: The Case of Wilhelm Hauff's “Dwarf Long Nose”’,
Children's Literature , 25 (1997).
— D. Maureen Thum
