When I was looking up MacDonogh's quote about FW's blood-lust being assuaged, I happened upon the Hille "You think his wants to be a musician, but it's worse than that, he wants to be a poet!" quote, and it went like this:
You think his passion is music, I wish to God it were so! But he has a stronger inclination: he wants to write verse and become a poet. While he hasn’t a clue whether his ancestors won Magdeburg in a game of cards or whatever, he can count out Aristotle’s poetic rules on his fingers, and for the last two days he has been torturing himself to render into French some German verses that the idiot Wilke* has given him.
And Wilke is footnoted as a civil servant.
The citation for this letter is Volz, who footnotes Wilke as "Geheimer Kriegs- und Domänenrat." Which, as I recall, is the way Stratemann presents the author of the poem. Now, previously, Hille, the director of the Kriegs- und Domänenrat, was the only person we (or I) knew to be affiliated with that, but--I checked Stratemann more closely.
The footnote to the poem says to see page 198.
Page 198 says,
Wie Se. Königl. Hoheit zum ersten mahl in die dasige Cammer kommen, hat der 2. Secretarius, als ein fertiger Poet, Dieselbe mit einigen Versen bewillkommnet, worauf der Prinz auf gleiche Weise gar kurz geantwortet hat.
"2. Secretarius" I think *can't* be Hille, as he's the director. I think it must be Wilke, who's the "accomplished poet," and this is the poem Fritz was "torturing himself to render into French" given to him by "that idiot Wilke." And Stratemann writes that the poem is from the Kriegs- und Domänenrat (or apparently Kriegs und Dom. Cammer-Canzley, which, same diff) because it was formally presented to Fritz by the committee upon his first meeting attendance.
This makes more sense of Hille!
There's more, which I will report later as the weak flesh allows, but for now, I think we've identified our author.
Stratemann - Küstrin poetry
You think his passion is music, I wish to God it were so! But he has a stronger inclination: he wants to write verse and become a poet. While he hasn’t a clue whether his ancestors won Magdeburg in a game of cards or whatever, he can count out Aristotle’s poetic rules on his fingers, and for the last two days he has been torturing himself to render into French some German verses that the idiot Wilke* has given him.
And Wilke is footnoted as a civil servant.
The citation for this letter is Volz, who footnotes Wilke as "Geheimer Kriegs- und Domänenrat." Which, as I recall, is the way Stratemann presents the author of the poem. Now, previously, Hille, the director of the Kriegs- und Domänenrat, was the only person we (or I) knew to be affiliated with that, but--I checked Stratemann more closely.
The footnote to the poem says to see page 198.
Page 198 says,
Wie Se. Königl. Hoheit zum ersten mahl in die dasige Cammer kommen, hat der 2. Secretarius, als ein fertiger Poet, Dieselbe mit einigen Versen bewillkommnet, worauf der Prinz auf gleiche Weise gar kurz geantwortet hat.
"2. Secretarius" I think *can't* be Hille, as he's the director. I think it must be Wilke, who's the "accomplished poet," and this is the poem Fritz was "torturing himself to render into French" given to him by "that idiot Wilke." And Stratemann writes that the poem is from the Kriegs- und Domänenrat (or apparently Kriegs und Dom. Cammer-Canzley, which, same diff) because it was formally presented to Fritz by the committee upon his first meeting attendance.
This makes more sense of Hille!
There's more, which I will report later as the weak flesh allows, but for now, I think we've identified our author.