German Literature, the Greatest Works: A Critical Examination of Language in Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal

Adalbert Stifter's "Rock Crystal" is one of those works of German literature that almost unanimously caused those who had to read it to utter a pained, drawn-out exclamation: "Boring!"

That's actually true; to truly enjoy the rock crystal, one would have to be stranded on a deserted island with the rock crystal as one's only book, presumably for the rest of one's life.

The story is actually the kind of material that a producer like Dick Wolf would turn into a 46-part, smash-hit TV series (see the article “German Literature, the Greatest Works: The Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter” ) – so why doesn't this text work at all?

Quite simply, it's the language; nothing works with such a language, and the following explains in more detail why:

Among the 735 words of the first paragraph are 87 adjectives that give us a good idea of ​​what to expect in this story – we just need to let these adjectives tell their “own story”:

“Various things are first lovely and then serious. It seems entirely holy, which happens eight times. Sad and doubly melancholy and gloomy it continues, and endlessly illuminated, domestic and icy, until it finally develops fivefold solemnly, doubly beautiful and most beautiful of all, and utterly cheerful, shining, Christian, wonderfully. At some point something is long, longer, longest, also shortest and most crooked, but much of it and much more, also following and following again and lying in between, until very late it becomes touchingly simple. Then it turns, Catholic, grandest and ecclesiastical, at least mostly, and splendidly too. Still and dark, wintry and gloomy, familiar things act, snowy and frosted and creaking. After glimpses of light, colorful and shimmering, it becomes desolate again, sad, emptied and ordinary, deep and small indeed, until a green thing, doubly glorious and shimmering warm and better will be, and it will be whole again. Slowly it becomes ragingly cold, various blood-red ones imbued with a magical gleam – even those (with the German language) better known and more familiar, the last eternal ones, have now escaped into the then vast, misty-gray landscape.”

This slightly surreal summary of the first paragraph also includes the last adjective, and if you can't glean any real meaning or, above all, any real mood from this nonsensical sentence, you're absolutely right – and at the same time, you've experienced firsthand, through a striking negative example, one of the core tenets of stylistics for linguistic expression: "Adjectives should only be used where they are absolutely necessary."

Verbs, the words with which the people in the story act, cry and suffer, rejoice and conquer, appear only very sporadically in Stifter's story – his people do not act, they are not alive, but their actions are only described; Stifter's written expression appears so unmoved, and so unmoved do his readers remain by his narrative.

Verbs are indispensable; they are the words that bring movement to a story, that ensure something really happens in a narrative; they should make up the majority of a text. We instinctively look for verbs in a story; we want to be told a story with these verbs that tells us something about specific individuals.

In this respect too, we have rather bad luck with Stifter, at least in the first paragraph:

In Stifter's stories, even when he uses a verb, the focus is usually not on acting individuals.

But the church celebrates the heartfelt feasts, the ones that give one pause for thought. Sadness and melancholy accompany us, the sun hangs high (against the skies) and snow covers (all the fields), the church celebrates again, it is Christmas Eve and Holy Night. The church celebrates again now, observing and sanctifying the hour of the Lord's birth, the bells summon.

Now, for a brief moment, people who can be perceived as individuals, albeit only as a mass of individuals – the inhabitants – are acting in haste.

That was the end of the active actions of people whom the reader can identify; now “one” shows the children, memories fly, “one” is accustomed to giving, the Christ Child brings, “one” lights candles, these float on branches, the children are only allowed to come at the sign that “is given”.

Then the door opens, the little ones are allowed in, and see things hanging in the tree and spread out on the table that they don't dare to touch because these things far exceed all their imaginations (these things obviously also exceed Stifter's imagination; he cannot imagine that people act actively – if you look at his life story, probably a fundamental problem of Stifter as a person).

Then the children become briefly active – they have finally received the items and now carry them around in their arms all evening and take them to bed (but unfortunately, these are not particularly exciting activities).

And that was it again: The children hear the sound of bells at midnight, stand in the warm room early in the morning, but the presents are lying around; father and mother decorate themselves for church, but they don't cook the festive meal at noon, instead it "is" (is always? arises by itself?).

Just because friends and acquaintances come, sit around, talk to each other and comfortably look out the windows doesn't make the story any more exciting or eventful, even if snowflakes are falling, a fog hangs around the mountains, or the sun is sinking.

Winter passes, spring comes, summer too, then a person becomes active again, the mother, who tells of the holy Christ, and according to Stifter we so gladly stand by – which is simply not true, we can no longer stand, we have long since fallen asleep.

If you object that later in the story, people with names, i.e., individuals, do appear – Konrad and Sanna and Tobias and Philipp and Sebastian and Michael – that is correct – but by then Stifter has long since lost any normally impatient reader, and Stifter tells us nothing enlightening about these people either.

Speaking of the 17,406 words that Stifter strung together for his story: This string of words includes sentences that are truly unique, such as the following:

“The Catholic Church celebrates Christmas Day as the day of the Savior’s birth with its greatest church celebration; in most regions, the midnight hour is already sanctified as the Lord’s birth hour with a splendid night celebration, to which the bells call through the still, dark, wintry midnight air, to which the inhabitants hurry with lights or on dark, well-known paths from snowy mountains past frost-covered forests and through creaking orchards to the church from which the solemn sounds come, and which rises from the middle of the village shrouded in ice-covered trees with its long, illuminated windows.”

95 words, 555 characters excluding spaces, 25 nouns joined together with 23 connectors (as, with, in, to) and 22 articles (the, a, a, a) and then garnished with 18 adjectives. A mere 7 verbs are meant to breathe life into the proceedings, but with churches that celebrate, midnight hours that are sanctified, bells that call, sounds that come, and windows that tower, the only element that expresses movement—the hurrying inhabitants—can no longer turn the tide.

There are other ways to do this, for example like this:

The villages of Gschaid and Millsdorf lie quietly in their snow-filled Alpine valley on either side of Mount Gars, but the inhabitants are very busy. Shoemaker Sebastian has just come from the forest, where he marked the most beautiful fir tree; his wife Marie is taking the third tray of delicious cookies out of the oven, and their children Konrad and Sanna want to taste them immediately.

Christmas is in the air in Gschaid and Millsdorf; the bells are ringing and calling the villagers to the pre-Christmas Mass; Sebastian and Marie and Konrad and Sanna hurry across the icy paths to the church; shepherd Phillip and woodcutter Michael also go to church daily during this time.

Still boring, but at least not stagnant, and we've already met a few people.

In conclusion, we must admit that Adalbert Stifter's "Bergkristall" will hardly keep his readers awake at night, but that, on the contrary, it is no shame if they occasionally doze off gently while reading it.

But only someone who has at least read this article can be outraged by this, and if the conversation goes a little deeper, he should have read the whole story; perhaps he will now do so voluntarily out of curiosity.

Anyone who enjoys the German language will also find a few beautiful phrases in the otherwise boring Stifter: the aforementioned “strongheart of ignorance” , “finely jagged forests” , “the sun that stands at the most crooked” , and the “magical gifts” , which might then allow him to bear with humor the fact that Stifter has not given us a magical gift of linguistic art .

More thoughts on German literature and Adalbert Stifter's "The Rock Crystal" can be found in the articles "German Literature, the Greatest Works - Why It's Worth Reading Them" , "German Literature, the Greatest Works: After a Look at the Author's Life, They Are More Fun" and "German Literature, the Greatest Works: The Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter" .

Lina Sahne

Passionate author with a keen interest in art

www.kunstplaza.de