Martin Luthers Fabeln und Sprichwörter
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Authors
Cranach, Lucas
Dithmar, Reinhard
Luther, Martin
Issue Date
1995
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
This is a hardbound reprint of the 1989 Insel Taschenbuch of the same title. Apparently the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft picked up the book from Insel in Frankfurt and made it a hardbound edition with dust jacket. It seems to me that the new editors make one howling error. The Insel paperback had on its title-page only Mit zahlreichen Abbildungen. This edition expands that phrase to Mit zahlreichen Abbildungen und Holzschnitten aus der Werkstatt von Lukas Cranach. Only two paintings come from the studio of Kranach, but there are many woodcuts from Steinhöwel's Ulm Aesop. I think one of the editors read too hastily what is written on 11: Die Holzschnitte zu einzelnen Fabeln und zur Vita Esopi aus dem Ulmer Aesop und die Illustrationen aus der Werkstatt von Lukas Cranach wurden so ausgewählt, dass sie nicht nur dem Schmuck dieses Bandes, sondern auch dem Verständnis der Texte dienen. On the book more broadly, let me include comments from the Insel edition. Dithmar lays out important texts in careful fashion, starting from Luther's thirteen fables of 1530 and their antecedents in Steinhöwel's Liber Primus. I take Dithmar's thesis to be that many commentators pounce on these thirteen fables as though they were Luther's word on the subject. Dithmar says rather that fable was important to Luther's thinking at a very basic level throughout his life. Dithmar goes on to present Luther's old-testament fables and then a set of fables labeled simply Luthers Fabeln. These seem to be individual stories for individual purposes; that is, Luther created them for individual literary creations. Such is, e.g., Vom Reichstag der Dohlen und Krähen, which Dithmar subtitles Luthers Brief an die Wittenberger Tischgesellen. New to me here, among Steinhöwel's woodcuts, is the image of Papstesel (87), an ass that incorporates in a rather voluptuous body the features of many different animals. There follow sections Aus Luthers Tischreden (119) and Luthers Theorie und Urteile über die Fabel (155). Next we find the collection of Luther's proverbs; these are of course all over whatever of his writings I have seen, including the fables. Dithmar does very good work, as far as I have checked, in the fifty-page section on sources and commentary. What a rich volume!
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Publisher
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft
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Identifier
5881 (Access ID)