Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen

German writer

• Born: March 17, 1621(?)
• Birthplace: Gelnhausen (now in Germany)
• Died: August 17, 1676
• Place of death: Renchen (now in Germany)

Grimmelshausen’s novel Simplicissimus, a masterpiece of German literature, depicts the adventures of a rogue amidst the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War. He also is well regarded for a sequel about a female rogue named Courage, and feminist scholars have embraced this work for depicting a woman controlling her own life.

Early Life

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (hahnz YAH-kohp krihs-TOH-fehl fohn GRIHM-ehls-how-zehn) was born in the small town of Gelnhausen in southwestern Germany during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). His father, Johannes, died when he was young, and his mother, Gertraud, left him to be raised by his grandfather when she remarried in 1627.

Evidence is scanty for the rest of Grimmelshausen’s early years, but he may have been forced to flee his Protestant town in 1634, when it was captured by Catholic soldiers. In later years, he served with Catholic regiments in various capacities, including as a stableboy and a private soldier, eventually rising to positions as clerk and regimental secretary.

Grimmelshausen’s formal education probably consisted of six or seven years at the local grammar school in Gelnhausen, where he would have studied religion and classical languages such as Latin, but he clearly read widely on his own.

Life’s Work

After the end of the Thirty Years’ War, Grimmelshausen left the military. A year later, in 1649, he married Catharina Henninger, with whom he had ten children, six of whom survived to adulthood. Before his marriage, he converted to Catholicism and also added “von” to his name, indicating his noble ancestry. His grandfather, a baker and innkeeper, had dropped the “von,” which had been part of the family name for centuries.

Also in 1649, Grimmelshausen became a steward in the village of Gaisbach, near Strasbourg, in charge of the estates of his former regimental commander, thus occupying a middle position in the social hierarchy between the nobility and the peasants. He remained in charge of the Schauenburg estates until 1660, then became steward for another landowner, a physician, from 1662 through 1665. He also tried his hand at being an innkeeper, first during 1657-1658 and then from 1665 to 1667. From 1667 until his death in 1676, he served as mayor of the town of Renchen, a position whose duties included tax collecting and acting as police chief and judge.

It was during the last decade of his life that Grimmelshausen began to publish his writings, but in that decade, despite being busy as the mayor of Renchen, he issued a large number of works. The best known of these, both at the time and since, was Der abentheuerliche Simplicissimus (1669; The Adventurous Simplicissimus, 1912). Known commonly as Simplicissimus , the work is a tale of picaresque adventure involving an orphan boy named Simplicissimus who becomes a roguish prankster as well as a soldier, a court jester, a physician’s assistant, a gentleman farmer, an actor, a traveler, and a quack doctor.

Simplicissimus was immediately successful, going through six editions in Grimmelshausen’s lifetime and inspiring numerous imitations. Grimmelshausen followed the work with a number of sequels as part of a “Simplician” cycle. One of the most notable of these sequels was Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetrügerin und Landstörtzerin Courasche (1670; Courage, the Adventuress , 1964; also translated as The Life of Courage: The Notorious Thief, Whore and Vagabond, 2001), a story of a female rogue nicknamed Courage, who fends for herself during the Thirty Years’ War.

Other sequels included Der seltsame Springinsfeld (1670; The Singular Life Story of Heedless Hopalong , 1981), about one of Courage’s lovers, and Das wunderbarliche Vogelsnest (1672, 1675; The False Messiah , 1964), about a bird’s nest that makes its owner invisible.

Grimmelshausen also published several non-Simplician works, including two romantic novels, Dietwald und Amelinde (1670) and Proximus und Lympida (1672), as well as Der keusche Joseph (1666; chaste Joseph), a novel based on the biblical story of Joseph. His first publication, Der satyrische Pilgram (1666, 1667; the satirical pilgrim) was a nonfiction work dealing with a number of philosophical and topical issues. Other nonfiction works include Simplicianischer zweyköpffiger Ratio Status (1670), an examination of the best way of governing; Rathstübel Plutonis (1672; Pluto’s council chamber), a discussion of wealth; and Der teustsche Michel (1673; German Michael), a mocking contribution to discussions on reforming the German language.

Throughout his works, Grimmelshausen displays a strong interest in morality from a Christian point of view, condemning or mocking various human vices and indicating the vanity of human endeavors by showing the unpredictable ups and downs of fortune. At the end of Simplicissimus, he even has his hero retreat from the evil world to become a hermit. At the same time, Grimmelshausen seems to encourage his readers to enjoy the various adventures in his novels even if they involve vices, and he also seems to have a sneaking liking for rogues, such as his character Courage, despite making overt condemnations of her immorality.

In his nonfiction works, Grimmelshausen tends to espouse a strict Christian morality. For example, in Ratio Status, Grimmelshausen depicts David, the biblical king, as a model ruler because of his humility, his obedience to God, and his repentance for his sins.

Grimmelshausen was self-taught, and he was an outsider when it came to the literary world of his time. What also set him apart from his contemporaries, who tended to write in an ornate, dignified, baroque style about aristocratic characters, was his style and subject matter. Harking back more to the plain style of sixteenth century writers such as Hans Sachs, Grimmelshausen had a satirical, ironic approach, used folksy language, and focused on the lives of ordinary people.

Significance

Grimmelshausen published most of his works under pseudonyms, and his authorship of the Simplician cycle was not discovered until the 1830’s. Once his authorship became known, Grimmelshausen’s name was honored in Germany. The Simplician cycle, after falling out of favor in the eighteenth century, had become a major part of Germany’s cultural heritage by the nineteenth century.

Although often honored, Grimmelshausen’s work also produced unease, leading editors in later centuries to revise his writing to moderate its language and remove its supposed vulgarity. There had been debate even in the Prussian parliament in 1876 on whether it was appropriate to teach Simplicissimus in the schools.

Despite this uneasiness in some quarters, it was Simplicissimus that made Grimmelshausen so highly regarded. Commentators refer to the work as Germany’s major seventeenth century contribution to world literature. The novel evokes a lively combination of a number of different modes: the rogue’s tale of entertaining adventures, a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story about the hero’s developing character, a satire on the world’s foibles, a serious examination of moral issues, and a realistic portrayal of the horrors of war.

Grimmelshausen’s story of the female rogue, Courage, which inspired the creation of the character Mother Courage by the twentieth century German playwright Bertolt Brecht, has also won attention. Feminist scholars have focused, especially, on Grimmelshausen’s portrayal of a woman in control of her own destiny.

Finally, as one of the few writers of his time to write about the Thirty Years’ War, which devastated Germany in his lifetime, Grimmelshausen’s depiction of the war has been of great use to historians and has influenced how the war has been seen in later centuries.

Bibliography

Benito-Vessels, Carmen, and Michael O. Zappala, eds. The Picaresque: A Symposium on the Rogue’s Tale. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994. A collection that analyzes picaresque literature, that is, literature with a roguish protagonist. The essay “From Duplicitous Delinquent to Superlative Simpleton: Simplicissimus and the German Baroque” examines Grimmelshausen’s major novel.

Horwich, Cara M. Survival in Simplicissimus and Mutter Courage. New York: P. Lang, 1997. Explores the theme of survival in Grimmelshausen’s major work and in Bertolt Brecht’s play based on the Grimmelshausen’s “courage” sequel. Part of the Studies in Modern German Literature series.

Menhennet, Alan. Grimmelshausen the Storyteller: A Study of the “Simplician” Novels. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1997. Provides biographical information, including a useful discussion of Grimmelshausen’s social status. Also analyzes his novels, focusing, perhaps excessively, on the notion of dualism.

Negus, Kenneth. Grimmelshausen. New York: Twayne, 1974. Provides detailed biographical information and a useful chronology. Analyzes Grimmelshausen’s works, but is overly concerned to fit them into categories and prove that they are unified.

Otto, Karl F., Jr. A Companion to the Works of Grimmelshausen. New York: Camden House, 2003. Useful collection of articles on various aspects of Grimmelshausen’s life and works. One shortcoming for readers unable to read German: The German quotations are not translated.