«Hug Schapler» - Überlieferung und Stilwandel: Ein Beitrag zum frühneuhochdeutschen Prosaroman und zur lexikalischen Paarform (Zürcher Germanistische Studien)

by Peter Bichsel

Der Hug Schapler ist eine der vier Prosaübersetzungen französischer Chansons de geste, die von Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken aus der Zeit um 1437 überliefert sind und am Anfang der Tradition des frühneuhochdeutschen Prosaromanes stehen. Der Hug Schapler eignet sich vor allem deshalb zu einer sprach- und textsortengeschichtlichen Untersuchung, weil an seinem Beispiel Überlieferung und Bearbeitung dieser Texte bis ins 19. Jahrhundert lückenlos nachvollzogen werden können. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit werden der Überlieferungsweg und die formalen Veränderungen des Textes nachgezeichnet. Es wird versucht, stilistische Eingriffe vor ihrem geistesgeschichtlichen Hintergrund darzustellen. Der zweite Teil konzentriert sich ganz auf die lexikalische Paar- oder Zwillingsform. Das in den Prosaromanen wie in mittel- und frühneuhochdeutschen Texten überhaupt häufige Stilmerkmal wird in seiner quantitativen wie qualitativen Entwicklung bis ins 19. Jahrhundert hinein verfolgt.

Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

About the author

Peter Bichsel was a popular Swiss writer and journalist representing modern German literature. He was a member of the Gruppe Olten.
Bichsel was born in 1935 in Lucerne, Switzerland, the son of manual labourers. Shortly after he was born, the Bichsels moved to Olten, also in Switzerland. After finishing school, he became an elementary school teacher, a job he held until 1968. From 1974 to 1981 he was the personal advisor and speech writer of Willy Ritschard, a member of the Swiss Federal Council. Between 1972 and 1989 he made his mark as a "writer in residence" and a guest lecturer at American universities. Bichsel lived on the outskirts of Solothurn for several decades.
He started publishing short lyric works in newspapers. In 1960, he got his first success in prose as a private printer. In the winter of 1963–1964, he took part in a writing course in prose taught by Walter Höllerer.
One of his first and best-known works is And Really Frau Blum Would Very Much Like to Meet the Milkman. Published only in a modest edition in 1964, the book was quickly sold out. The reason was an enthusiastic review by Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Just as successful, Children's Stories, intended for adults, is written in the form of droll tales for children. Both books were translated from German by the English poet Michael Hamburger. A theme of Bichsel's works for younger readers is the stubborn desire of children to take words literally and wreak havoc on the world of communicated ideas. In the early 1970s and 1980s, Bichsel's journalistic work pushed his literary work mainly into the background. Only Der Busant (1985) and Warten in Baden-Baden appeared again with the Bichsel style that was so familiar to German readers. Peter Bichsel gave up being a professional teacher early in his lifetime, later he continued to teach his readers that the drudgery and banality of life are of our own making. He used often a simple sentence structure 'subject-predicate-object' and was a passionate observer of Switzerland.
In 1981, he was a member of the jury at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival.
Peter Bichsel's estate is archived in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern.