Novel
Großmütiger Feldherr Arminius
Not translated into English
Daniel Casper von Lohenstein · 1689
Synopsis
The novel starts from the battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where the Germanic tribes led by Arminius annihilate the legions of Varus. Around the Germanic chief and Thusnelda, whom he loves, unfold wars, embassies, love affairs and court intrigues, in an ancient Germania where, under the mask of history, the situation of the Empire in the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War is debated.
Context
Left unfinished at its author's death, the novel was completed by other hands and appeared in Leipzig, at Gleditsch, in two volumes dated 1689 and 1690: about three thousand pages. It sums up the knowledge of its time and lends to the Germans and the Romans the political debates of the Empire. Critics of the following century, Gottsched foremost, decried it for its accumulated metaphors and its display of erudition, before twentieth-century criticism returned to more favourable judgements.
Who it is for
A sprawling novel in Baroque German, with no translation or current edition, best approached in fragments.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a pinnacle of the German baroque novel; it was read and reissued until the middle of the eighteenth century.
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