Auf der Suche nach dem verlorenen Märchen : 'Ninfa' in Texten von Emmi Lewald (1866–1946)

Abstract

Emmi Lewald is largely forgotten today, or, at best, remembered as an author of popular fiction. Her considerable contribution to German literature on Italy has similarly been marginalized within literary historiography. Lewald's Italian texts demonstrate her engagement with the classical canon of literature on Italy, including Goethe, Lord Byron and August von Platen. However, in particular she drew significant inspiration from Ferdinand Gregorovius, Victor Hehn, and the painter Arnold Böcklin, all of whom had a lasting impact on the German reception of Italy in the late nineteenth century. Lewald's texts on Italy display an eclectic appropriation of diverse sources. Her feuilleton on Ninfa shifts between traditional notion and the experience of modern tourism made possible by the advent of the railway. At the same time, it serves as a historical document marking the end of the 'Grand Tour' and the traditional bourgeois educational journey. The study was conducted in the context of the international and interdisciplinary project on the history of the garden and ruin city of Ninfa and its environs from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, initiated and directed by Michael Matheus.: https://vergleichendelandesgeschichte.geschichte.uni-mainz.de/ninfa-the-pompeii-of-the-middle-ages/