Simplicius Simplicissimus


Simplicius Simplicissimus is a picaresque novel of the lower Baroque style, written in 1668 by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and probably published the same year. Inspired by the events and horrors of the Thirty Years' War which devastated Germany from 1618 to 1648, it is regarded as the first adventure novel in the German language and the first German novel masterpiece.
The full subtitle is "The account of the life of an odd vagrant named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim: namely where and in what manner he came into this world, what he saw, learned, experienced, and endured therein; also why he again left it of his own free will."

Plot overview

The novel is told from the perspective of its protagonist Simplicius, a rogue or picaro typical of the picaresque novel, as he traverses the tumultuous world of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he was so simple that he did not know what his own name was. After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and to an alternative world inhabited by mermen. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage himself, denouncing the world as corrupt.

Reception and legacy

Literary criticism

The novel is considered by some to contain autobiographic elements, inspired by Grimmelshausen's experience in the war. It has been reported that as a child Grimmelshausen was kidnapped by Hessian and Croatian troops where he eventually served as a musketeer. The historian Robert Ergang, however, draws upon Gustav Könnecke's Quellen und Forschungen zur Lebensgeschichte Grimmelshausens to assert that "the events related in the novel Simplicissimus could hardly have been autobiographical since lived a peaceful existence in quiet towns and villages on the fringe of the Black Forest and that the material he incorporated in his work was not taken from actual experience, but was either borrowed from the past, collected from hearsay, or created by a vivid imagination."

Adaptions

Literary adaptions

The adventures of Simplicissimus became so popular that they were reproduced by authors in other European countries. Simplicissimus was recreated in French, English, and Turkish. A Hungarian Simplicissimus was published in 1683. The author remained anonymous but is now generally considered to be Breslau-born Daniel Speer.

Opera

20th-century composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann wrote the anti-war opera Simplicius Simplicissimus for chamber orchestra in the mid-1930s, with contributions to the libretto by his teacher Hermann Scherchen. It opens:
It was first performed in 1948; Hartmann scored it for full orchestra in 1956. The chamber version was revived by the Stuttgart State Opera in 2004.

TV series

, a historically dramatised TV series based on the book was produced by ZDF in 1975.

Comic strip

The story was adapted into a newspaper comic strip by Raymond Lavigne and Gilbert Bloch in 1954.

Cultural legacy

Town mascot: ''Jägerken von Soest''

The Hunter of Soest is one of the aliases Simplicius uses in the novel. The city of Soest developed this into the local mascot in 1976. Every year a citizen is selected, who then gets to represent the town and charitable projects of his choice in costume.

''Simplicissimus House'' in Renchen

The is a museum in the town of Renchen. It opened in 1998 and focuses on the reception of Grimmelshausen's works in modern art.
Right in front of it stands a 1977 bronze statue by Giacomo Manzù, showing Simplicius in his Hunter of Soest character.

Literary references

Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus is used throughout John le Carré's novel A Perfect Spy as Magnus Pym's permanent key for one-time pad coding. More importantly, Pym's own life is represented as a picaresque: a boy dragged along in his father's career of frauds, and a man in the British intelligence service, making up lies and exaggerations about his life.

Editions

English translations include:
'Simplicius Simplicissimus' J.J.C.von Grimmelshausen translated and foreword by George Schulz-Behrend 1976. 'The Adventure of Simplicicius Simplicissimus' George Schulz-Behrend 1993.
The German text is publicly available through Project Gutenberg: .
PDFs of the original German-language edition, bearing the date 1669 but probably published already in 1668, may be downloaded from and from .