1. Daniel Hopfer, “Landesknechte” (A Band of Mercenary Soldiers) (1530)
*Re-presenting War *Unpacking Simplicissimus *Lecture Review Dr. Morse Fall 2015

2. Goals for Today Thirty Years’ War “Re-Presentations” In Dialogue
Group/Small Group Discussion of Simplicissimus
Bildungsroman – Didactic Novel
Satire: Exagerration, Irony, Sarcasm
Satirizing War: Military Culture (Iliad: Honor, Fame) Quartering, etc.
Satirizing Religion
“Nation” Building: Shared Narrative, Collective Consciousness
Hobbesian State of Nature vs. Locke/Rousseau Social Contract Theory

3. An early example of what many scholars now label a Bildungsroman – Didactic Novel
Moral, psychological and intellectual growth and development on an individual achieved through experiences in the world
Some emotional loss or existential crisis sets protagonist on a difficult path into the world to grow through self-actualization
Protagonist usually at odds with the values of society at the beginning/throughout novel – in many cases resolved by the end
Didactic quality aimed at readers - Text teaches reader how to read the text and challenges readers to uncover the deeper, figurative meaning of the novel
Question: Book 6 Question – does he achieve maturity/self actualization?

4. “Re-presentation” or Staging of the Text
How does this frontispiece image prepare the readers to read the text?

5. How should we define the Hapsburg empire as a cultural or political space?
What did “Germany” (as we know today) look like at the time of the 30 Years’ War?
What connects a people (ideologically) to a nation?

6. Read this text: Metaphor of Seeing
“Ratification of the Treaty of Westphalia” oil on canvas, Gerard ter Borch, Münster, 1648.
Read this text: Metaphor of Seeing
How is this event “re-presented”?
How does this “staging” shape meaning?
What’s under the “mask”?

7. Read this text as an allegory How does this “staging” shape meaning?
“Mars” oil on canvas , Diego Velázquez, c
Read this text as an allegory
How does this “staging” shape meaning?
About the war in the artist’s present
Inevitability of war in the future

8. State of Nature - Social Contract
Individuals living outside of organized civil society. Individuals are born with natural rights. Individuals/groups establish compacts and self-regulate.
In a state of nature there are no common laws and no judge to adjudicate, to pass judgment or punish.
In a state of nature, war is unavoidable.
The only way to prevent war is through threat of violent force by absolutist (undivided/unlimited) sovereign power.

9. State of Nature - Connection to Nation
“… I fell asleep again and did not wake up until well into the day. When the hermit stood in front of me and said, ‘Get up little one, I’ll give you something to eat and show you the way out of the woods, so you get back to your people in the village before night falls.’ I asked him, ‘What’s that, people,’ ‘village’? He said, ‘Have you never been in a village? Don’t you know what ‘humans’ or ‘people’ are?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ve been nowhere but here; but tell me, what are people”? (12).

10. Irony is sometimes confused with Satire
Satire: Genre of writing that exposes the vices or follies of an individual, institution, idea, community, etc. with an underlying aim at correcting it, social criticism.
Satiricists use humor, exaggeration, irony , sarcasm and ridicule when trying to expose human weakness or folly (foolishness, recklessness)
Can have a didactive (instructive) function

11. How do you define irony and what are some specific kinds of irony?
Irony: Saying one thing and meaning another or doing another. It is also a discrepancy between what is expected and what happens (unlike a coincidence).
Verbal Irony: Using words that convey something quite different from the literal meaning of the words.
Situational Irony: Contrast between what you expect to happen in a given situation and what actually happens.
Dramatic Irony: Readers know more than the characters (heightens or changes the meaning of words or situations)

12. What kind of irony is this, and how does it impact the meaning?
“Sim: Our dear father, who art heaven hallowed be name, kingdom come your will done heaven on earth, given us debts as we give our debtors. Led us never in no evil attempts, but save us from the kingdom and the power and the glory in eternity. Emma” (Grimmelshausen 13).

13. What kind of irony is this, and how does it impact the meaning?
“Herm: Heaven help me! Don’t you know anything of our Lord God?
Sim: You bet! He hung in the corner behind the kitchen door. Mither brought him home from the fair and fastened him up there” (14).
Inside joke – crucifix is a “house blessing” hanging on the wall overlooking the dining room table next to the kitchen. Usually purchased from local artisan. Dining table is communal space – break bread with strangers, etc. As house blessing the religious meaning could be overshadowed by superstition.

14. What kind of irony is this, and how does it impact the meaning?
“Concerning theology, there was no one like me in all Christendumb … You can easily imagine that with such theology I lived like our first parents in paradise … I was so perfect and excellent in ignorance that I could not possibly have known that I knew nothing at all” (3).

15. What kind of irony is this, and how does it impact the meaning?
The hermit was so successful in teaching me mainly because the smooth tablet of my mind was altogether blank; when he started writing on it, he did not have to crowd out or erase anything. Nevertheless, compared to other folks there still was plenty of simplicity in me, and for this reason the hermit called me “Simplicius,” since neither of us knew my real name (16).
P. 4 “Among the Romans there were noble families…”

16. Irony can participate in Sarcasm
Sarcasm: Being critical of individual, group, institution, etc. through mean-spirited humor (just kidding - not really)
Offering praise when really trying to insult (ironic)
Sarcasm generally occurs with malicious intent.
Sometimes sarcasm is delivered as a mocking or ironic comment.

17. Form and function of sarcasm?
“In this day and age when many think the world is coming to an end, a disease is rampant among common people, an affliction that makes those suffering from it want to be knights and nobles of ancient lineage … to tell the truth – their whole clan with its thirty-two ancestors is as sullied and soiled as a street gang in Prague … I don’t like to put myself on par with these foolish people , though …I have often thought I must have some grand seigneur or at least a run of the mill nobleman for an ancestor, for by nature I am inclined toward the business of nobility” (1).

18. Getting to know Simplicius
Group 1: Book 1 Chapter 15
Group 2: Book 1 Chapter 14
Group 3: Book 1 Chapter 3 p. 5
Group 4: Book 1 Chapter 4 pp. 6-7
Group 5: Book 1 Chapter 6 pp (first line)
How title informs meaning or purpose of the passage?
What is satirized and why? (Nobility, War, Religion, …)
Social commentary or criticism or something else?