Luther Fuller

John Maynard is one of the most famous ballads Theodor Fontane. It was the first time in 1886 in Berlin Colorful wallet. Original Contributions Berlin artist and writer ( publishing house for art and science formerly Friedrich Bruckmann Munich) published.

The ballad praising John Maynard, helmsman of a passenger ship on Lake Erie, breaks out on the opposite end of a trip from Detroit to Buffalo fire. John Maynard remains " in smoke and fire " at his post until the ship reached the shore, and so saves all at the cost of his own life.

Background

On the night of 8 August 9 1841 Erie steamer came on the trip from Buffalo to Erie ( Pennsylvania) on fire after a cargo of turpentine and paint that had been stored at the vats had caught fire. The ship then took course from the coast eight miles distant, but without reach. Of the approximately 200 or according to other sources up to 300 people on board, including many Swiss and German steerage passengers, only 29 were rescued. The duty helmsman Luther Fuller, who is said to have endured to last at his post survived, badly injured or died immediately, at any rate was recorded by Captain Titus in the list of the dead.

About the disaster was not only reported in the press; they also suggested to literary processing. In an unknown author from 1845 such of steamboats traveling from Buffalo to Erie, Jersey, the heroic helmsman called but already as Theodor Fontane, John Maynard. In John Bartholomew Gough's short prose text about the brave John Maynard of 1860 the journey of the steamer then leads from Detroit to Buffalo. On the use of the substance in the presentations of the temperance Jewellers Gough Horatio Alger pointed in the publication of his poem John Maynard. A Ballad of Lake Erie in 1868 down.

German visitors are often disappointed that nothing from that described by Fontane grave with "Thanks to saying" the city " golden script " on the " marble " White Buffalo. The brave John Maynard, whose ballad still often part of the curriculum of teaching German in Germany, there is virtually unknown. In 1997, therefore, the lake is a bronze cast plaque mounted horizontally in the Erie Basin Marina is right "in honor of the legend of John Maynard " on the quay wall. You are Fontane's poem in the English translation of Burt Erickson Nelson again and mentioned the burning of the Erie with Luther ( Augustus ) Fuller at the helm. The conclusion from "let the coffin down into flowers ... " is to be read in the original German.

Shaping

The ballad consists of nine stanzas of varying length (2-10 verses ) and two single verse in the beginning. The meter and rhyme show that there is a doggerel. Almost all the verses have four beats with free -cutting fillings. This means that there are uniform per verse four stressed syllables and the space in between and is filled with one or two unstressed syllables in free distribution before the first elevation. Before the first raising it can also not be any reduction, so that the verse begins with a stressed syllable. The first two verses and the attribution at the end of the dedication are shortened. The rhyme is in accordance with the doggerel rhyme a pair. This loosely tied verse is particularly well suited for narrative poems, and is common in the Middle Ages, particularly for folk poems or poems that mimic the popular voice. In contrast to the looseness of the meter is the rigor of a cadence. Each verse ends male, ie, with a stressed syllable. Thus about half of the German words is excluded for the design of Versendes. Fontane brings the verse regarding meter and cadence in a balance. This is characteristic of the art of ballad and distinguishes them from the folk ballad. The irregular verse form is a sovereign artistic design decision Fontane. Of such individuality is characteristic of the art ballad, in particular of the great poets, because even the poet " from the second row " proceed generally standardized.

The first and last verse in content and form a frame around the middle five stanzas, in which the last half hour is pictured before the accident. This Fontane achieved by varying the motifs ( fire, water, reaction of the passengers, dialogue with the tax man) and counting down the remaining " minutes to Buffalo ", which closes each narrative phase, an oppressive and enhancing compression of events. As a result, Fontane's representation ends with the rescue of all persons except the helmsman John Maynard and the breakup of the ship due to the commanded controlled beaching - and thus completely opposite to the real events. The bombastic funeral Maynards in the last stanza is in stark contrast to the actual fate of the helmsman. The tribute shown on the grave, which is so similar to set a survivor in her mouth at the beginning of the poem, is by varying the development of the individual expression of an interested party to the official grave inscription - at the same time it forms a frame around the events of the middle stanzas, by this trick to appear as a flashback. Through the context of variation and the poem from the outside and the inside has a strongly shaped by.

The ballad usually contains characteristics of three literary genres, which is the case here as well. As a narrative poem, it makes use of the design characteristics of poetry (verses, verse, rhyme) and epic ( course of action pose ). Direct speech is the key feature of the drama.

Ballads tell of events in which unusual, weird or horror Full happens. The mere repetition of the accident and the failed rescue attempt in reality is too superficial for a poet of realism despite the actual suffering. The material calls for poetic reshaping. 1853 " Fontane created confident the program of literary realism " with the central demand to poeticise the removed from reality fabric. This happens here in particularly by the perversion of the real events and thereby effected stylization Maynards hero. With superhuman effort, he uses his life to rescue the passengers. This Fontane captures the extraordinary, not hergaben the real events in poetic terms. At the same time it moves in the educated middle-class tradition of superelevation a figure for the exemplary hero.

Soundtrack / movie

• Folk rock version on rain Ballad of Achim Reichel - bonus track only on the CD
• Short Fiction Who is John Maynard? (2009) by David Kremser with Karoline Teska

Swell

• Norman Barry: Fontane's " John Maynard ": New discoveries of source research. In: Fontane leaves 85/2008, pp. 150-170, article as PDF
• JohnMaynard.net
• Bettina Meister: A steam ship catches fire. November 3, 2008
• Burning of the Erie Lloyd's Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters ..., 1841, 121-26, published in 1856
• Horatio Alger John Maynard: A Ballad of Lake Erie ( 1868)