18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

[cahn]

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

Comments

Re: I. General and AW

[mildred_of_midgard]

Super fast write-up, omg!

Meusel thinks Lehndorff's attempt to love Fritz as a loyal subject only to find himself appalled by the Fritzian personality time and again proves that maybe the fault wasn't only on the brothers' parts.

Meusel is brave for 1905!

Finally an explanation for the "Hulla" nickname for AW

Ahh, I love when our questions get answered!

"Komödie vom Hanswurst Hulla"

For cahn, I looked up Hanswurst in Wikipedia and found this:

Hanswurst or Hans Wurst (German for "Johnny Sausage") was a popular coarse-comic figure of German-speaking impromptu comedy. He is "a half doltish, half cunning, partly stupid, partly knowing, enterprising and cowardly, self indulgent and merry fellow, who, in accordance with circumstances, accentuated one or other of these characteristics.

Some interesting (to me) observations on the development:

Through the 16th and 17th centuries, he was a buffoon character in rural carnival theaters and touring companies...In 1712, Joseph Anton Stranitzky developed and popularized the role of Hanswurst. The theater historian Otto Rommel saw this as the beginning of the so-called Viennese popular theater. Stranitzky's Hanswurst wore the garb of a peasant from Salzburg, with a wide-brimmed hat on. His humor was often sexual and scatological. The character found numerous imitators.

In the "Hanswurst dispute" of the 1730s, the scholar Johann Christoph Gottsched, in addition to the actress Friederike Caroline Neuber, strove to banish the buffoon from the German-speaking stage, to improve the quality of German comedies and to raise their social status, holding a public "banishing" of Hanswurst. This met with resistance, especially in Vienna. However, the staged banishment has generally been regarded as an emblematic moment in German theater history for the transition from popular, improvised, so-called Stegreiftheater to a modern bourgeois literary mode.

In the later 18th century Hanswurst was out of fashion and was only used in the puppet theater.

Mr. Glasow has forged several seals; he's opened letters adressed to the King, and which he answered; he was about to steal 100 000 Taler and to run off with them. He has reported all the news he could get his hands on to the Saxons, and when he was searched, two pocket pistols were discovered in his possession, which according to himself he only carried with him for the fun of it. Other than that, he didn't do anything.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

LOL, wow. I guess AW is saying the poisoning accusations are unfounded?

everyone is considering AW as Achilles and hopes for his return to the battlefield which will surely bring the turnaround in this war. Which, oh, Lehndorff. I don't think even Heinrich and Ferdinand saw AW as Achilles.

!!!

Oh, Lehndorff. Well, hyperbole it may be, but I see you were trying to comfort him. <33

Now I find that I'm today not worth more than I was yesterday, and tomorrow I might be worth less than today, so that after all discounts I don't present much of an investment in totem.

Lol, Amalie! She had a way with words sometimes.

Re: I. General and AW

[selenak]

The Hanswurst banishing was indeed a big thing in German theatre history. cahn, this Gottsched was the one who tried to convince Fritz of the worthiness of the German language (with a hilarious Nicolai anecdote to describe their encounter), and whose wife was a publishing Émilie fan. (Who also liked MT.) You can bet Hanswurt plays were exactly what FW had liked and SD hadn't wanted her children to watch, though.


Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

LOL, wow. I guess AW is saying the poisoning accusations are unfounded?

Probably. The essay doesn't include Lehndorff's letter to AW about this, but that would have been an obvious question to ask given the rumors making the round in Berlin, and AW had the advantage of having been there and in the know. (As this predates Kolin and his command in the aftermath.) I note AW does not mention a fellow accomplice, unlike Büsching and Second Chamber Hussar in their versions.