Allegorische Texturen

This study examines prose works from four different epochs of Clemens Brentano's career (1778-1842) with a view to tracing the procedures of allegorisation, allegoresis and hermeneutics employed by the author and revealing the continuity in approach and method from the author's early period all the way up to his final works. The works discussed range from the early fragment 'Der Sänger' to the late Märchen (fairy-tale) 'Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen', with interpretations of the 'Märchen von dem Myrtenfräulein' and the 'Mehreren Wehmüllern' pointing up the specifically Romantic profile of the author in his middle period. Explication of Brentano's imagery and his combinatorial prowess, identification of quotations and allusions and reference to parallel motifs in the author's oeuvre as a whole are the main concerns of the painstaking philological analysis provided here. Taken together they richly illustrate the complexity of Brentano's highly artificial text structures.