Till Eulenspiegel

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Till Eulenspiegel

• Historical Eulenspiegel lived c. 1300-1350.
  Oral transmission.
• Stories compiled (probably) by Hermann Bote
  (1467-1520) in a Volksbuch, entitled Ein
  kurtzweilig Lesen von Dil Ulenspiegel, published
  in 1515.
• Crude folk humor and satire, centered on the
  popular clown figure of Till Eulenspiegel.

Woodcut by Hans Balding Grien in the 1515 edition
of Eulenspiegels adventures.
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Till Eulenspiegel

• Eulenspiegel a very popular figure in Germany
  today, though most of his tales have been
  adapted to modern tastes.
• Original tales highly scatological and crudely
  satirical.
• Eulenspiegel a clown, jester, actor, trickster,
  thief, liar, prankster, devil, saint, sadist,
  philanthropist, and even linguistic philosopher.

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Till Eulenspiegel

• Tradition of Schwankbücher, or jestbooks in
  the middle ages.
• Mock or satirize the pretentiousness of the
  upper classes, or of mankind in general.
• His name Owl-Mirror may suggest his role as
  satirist (wise reflection), or not.
• Eulenspiegel a character of great contradictions
  and paradoxes, eloquent and vulgar, violent and
  sympathetic.

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Till Eulenspiegel

• Eulenspiegel sometimes seen as an avenger of the
  peasant class, as a source of childlike justice
  and retribution.
• He usually deceives the dishonest, tricks those
  who are conceited or hypocritical.
• Linguistic games he always takes people
  literally, even though language is usually used
  figuratively.
• Fascination with excrement, but almost entirely
  lacking in sex.

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Till Eulenspiegel
12. How Eulenspiegel became sexton in the village
of Büddenstedt and won a barrel of beer.
Woodcuts very popular in the 16th century.
Masterpieces in Germany by Albrecht Dürer, who
was possibly involved in the woodcuts for the
1515 edition (B. Grien, who did some, was his
pupil).
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Till Eulenspiegel
17. How Eulenspiegel got all the patients at a
hospital healthy in one day.
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Till Eulenspiegel
19. How Eulenspiegel apprenticed himself as a
bakers boy to a baker.
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Till Eulenspiegel
20. How Eulenspiegel sifted flour by moonlight
into the courtyard.
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Till Eulenspiegel

• Structure of the book similar to the Faustbuch
  biographical frame with interior adventures.
• Entertaining and satirical, though without the
  strong religious and moral messages of Faust.
• Eulenspiegels death as absurd as his life,
  playing pranks until the very end.

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Till Eulenspiegel

• Eulenspiegel a popular figure in folk
  imagination in Germany.
• Many statues of him in the towns where he played
  his pranks.
• Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks (1895) by
  Richard Strauss.