‘ICK SNACK PLA’IT, DU OK’: THE NEW GENERATION OF GERMAN DIALECT WRITERS

BY GERALD NEWTON

One of the most remarkable features of German literature in the last few years has been the success of dialect works. The translation of the New Testament into Low German, for example, was sold out almost as soon as it appeared, while dialect poems of a modern kmd and dialect plays are avidly discussed in all parts of Germany.’ Dialect literature is a major source of interest and excitement. Andreae, Bauer, Bellmann, Berlinger, Bosch, Bunker, Burren, Deichsel, Dillier, Eckl, Eggimann, Fassbinder, Fruth, Gesswein, Gulden, Haag, Haid, Henkel, Hoerburger, Holzwarth, Janetschek, Johannimloh, Kapfer, Kessemeier, Konig, Kreye, Krischker, Kroetz, Kruse, Kuhwide, Kusz, Marti, Meilhamer, Muhle, Nostlinger, Oppler, Reichert, Schaller, Seufferth, Sigel, Solderer, Sommer, Soumagne, Sperr, Staudacher, Turrini, Vogt, Weckmann, Weigand, Winter, Wittmann, Ziem, Zoderer-these are only some of the names which have caught the attention of audiences and reading public; indeed there are so many names that it is difficult for the outsider, especially the interested foreigner, to gain any true impression of just how deep and extensive the new dialect wave really is. Even now, of the dramatists perhaps only Fassbinder, Kroetz and Sperr are widely known abroad, and of the poets perhaps Andreae, Gesswein, Gulden, Johannimloh, Kusz, Marti and Soumagne, yet books by both poets and dramatists sell well not only within the ancient preserve of Switzerland and Austria, but also throughout the Federal Republic. National interest has taken over from local patriotism, as subject matter and mode of expression have captured public atten- tion aided by radio, television, recordings and live performances. ‘Platt’ has even been heard in the Bundestag,* and car-stickers in almost every region express separatist sentiments with almost gangland truculence. ‘Die bundesweite Popularitat vom Plattdeutschen aller Varianten, von Kolsch und von Gebabbele, Bajuwarischem und Alemannischem signalisiert die Auferstehung Iangst totgesagten Kulturguts, bedeutet Tendenzen auch beim Mundwerk. ’ 3 Not since the nineteenth century has such an upsurge been seen, and never en masse for quite the same reasons. It has come largely in the drama and the short poem, sometimes in the protest song, but all of it shows the same social concern, the same critical investigation into a modern way of life considered clichi-ridden, politically manipulated, and industrially polluted, particularly since 1968. This is not the nineteenth-century idyll of the rambling rustic novel, but a type of composition that comes in sharp savage bursts interpolated with ominous and awkward silences. Up till now it has never been analysed in depth by scholars who are both dialect poets themselves and critics of high standing. With the appear- ance of Die Neue Deutscbe Mundartdzcbtung- Tendenzen und Autoren, dargestellt am Beispiel der L y d by Fernand Hoffmann and Josef Berlinger3a this has now been rectified. It is a work which is to be applauded for attempting to create order out of dialect chaos, to assign poets to currents which very often flow imperceptibly into one another, to fx in print and time authors whose chief

416 ‘ICK SNACK PLAIT. DU OK’

concern is to retain the elusiveness of an Eulenspiegel. It is, of course, a pathfinder, and as such must cast a wide beam which necessarily becomes diffuse in parts, but it does catch almost all of the lyric south of the Main, and a con- siderable amount of it to the north, while at the same time revealing the historical setting of the whole.

The book comprises two main sections (pp. 1-80 and pp. 81-355), the first being by Josef Berlinger,3 who gives a brief history and concise survey of currents and trends since the 1950’s, the second by Fernand Hoffmann, which is much wider-ranging and accounts for some eighty per cent of the text. Hoffmann pro- vides a survey and analysis of dialect lyrics selected area by area, and attempts to bring them to a conclusive synthesis.

As the authors acknowledge, more emphasis has been placed on the south than on the north, but as they also acknowledge, the south is really their own area of competence. There is in any case no reason for apology, as much of modern dialect writing made its first appearance in the south, and as such is a reversal of the nine- teenth century pattern. There is, of course, some danger in a survey of this type that the author will smother his reader under a solid mass of names and allow himself to become anecdotal. Hoffmann’s firmness has prevented much of this, and whilst there are, naturally, some of the omissions and repetitions one associates with a work of combined authorship, these serve only to reinforce the text. What is lacking, however, is a comprehensive index of the almost fifty authors who are mentioned, and while there is an excellent section of individual biographies in one of the appendices, this is no real substitute for extensive page- reference. Translations, too, might have been more extensive, but this is probably something of greater concern to a foreign readership. These points apart, the book provides a great deal of excellent critical insight; so much so that any selection from it is bound to be drfficult and arbitrary. Nevertheless, it is hoped that most of its points will be covered by the following account, which is divided into two sections, the first containing the arguments as put forward by Hoffmann and Berlinger on the dialect lyric, and the second offered as a parallel survey of recent developments in the German theatre. The stimulus for such a survey comes from a brief mention of Sperr, Fassbinder, Kroetz, Bauer, Sommer and Turrini by Berlinger (page 57) and may perhaps serve to provide the wider context.

I

Although nineteenth-century dialect writers have sometimes given the impression of being maudlin sentimentalist., they were both realists and social critics. Klaus Groth (1809-1899) and Fritz Reuter (1810-1874) in particular have left a legacy of classic works of literature which even today many local poets still use as their model. But over the intervening century this model has been robbed of its social purpose, and what remains is largely unquestioning exultation in ‘Modersprak’ and times gone by. But editors of yearly ‘Heimatbucher’ are well aware that nostaIgia, too, has its audience, and that their publications are thus assured of a captive local readership. Any non-local interest is as often as not purely linguistic. As Hoffmann puts it:

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Es war die Herabwiirdigung des Dialekts und der Mundartliteratur zum Stimulans spiesserisch-pantoffeliger Heimattiimelei, zum verlogen- verharmlosenden Romantitismus und zur verniedlichenden Schonfarberei bei einer brutalen, einzig auf Produktion und Erwerb eingestellten Gesellschaft, die die Mundartdichtung zum mitleidig belachelten Reservat fiir beschlafmiitzte Spinner gemacht hatte. . . .6

Developments away from the traditions of the nineteenth century were slow in arriving, and as ever dogged by the publishers’ dilemma of how to adapt standard orthography and how to estimate circulation figures among the few percipients who could read a literary text in dialect. (Even if the dialect is one’s own, it calls for a degree of persistence that no average dialect-speaker would bother to trouble himself with.) Thus it was rare for such a publication to exceed an edition of two thousand copies, even if it was of the humorous variety of local/regional diction- ary appealing to a national audience which enjoyed short-lived popularity even in Britain a few years ago (the German equivalent had at least more claim to scholar- ship). But from the mid-1970’s, dialect publications have quite often exceeded sales of two thousand, as the largest lyric publisher, J. P. Peter Gebr. Holstein, of Rothenburg 0.d. Tauber, can well attest, as too can the publishers of the Low German New Testament, five thousand copies of which were sold within the frrst week of its appearance in March 1976.’

Although Hoffmann and Berlinger make no specific mention of it, opposition to the meretricious use the German language had been subjected to by the National Socialists was quick to come at the end of the war. German needed de- programming if it were ever to be used again for literary purposes, and it was to this end that in August 1946 Hans Werner Richter began publication of Der Rafi its ideal, an anti-sentimental stripped-down style, eventually became known as ‘Kahlschlag’, and the movement itself became the ‘Gruppe 47’. It has been called ‘a withdrawal course for drug addicts’ .8

If such a course was necessary for the ‘Innendeutsche’, it was no less necessary for Austria. The language in Austria had suffered the same degradations as in Germany, but now that the latter had been forced to accept a federal structure, there was no longer any reason why an alien central variety of German with its roots in Leipzig and Berlin should continue to dominate Austria as a literary medium. As Berlinger says, Austrian has its own genius, and is capable of ‘eine Fiille klanglicher Valeurs, welche das Hochdeutsche gar nicht bietet’ . 9 In Alsace, too, similar feelings were in the air, particularly as an Act of 1951 had recognized the separate linguistic status of Breton and Basque within the French State, but ignored that of Alemannic and Franconian in Alsace and Lorraine. But while dialect was to wait many years to make its breakthrough in Alsace (in Lorraine it has not made it yet), in Austria the struggle was easier, and had already begun in Vienna by the mid-1950’s. What eventually became known as the ‘Wiener Gruppe’ received its frrst impetus in 1956, when Hans Weissenborn, publisher of the literary journal Alpha, took a serious look at dialect by dedicating a complete issue to the new Viennese writers. It was a gamble that paid off, and the number was quickly sold out. In 1958, Alpha published what has since been acknowledged

418 ‘ICK SNACK PUTT, DU OK’

as the major work of the Wiener Gruppe: medana scbwoazzn dintn, gedicbtarazls bradnsee’O by Hans Carl Artmann. The main non-traditional influence on the group came from concrete poetry. Emphasis was on form rather than on content, and form was something which could be arranged into a multitude of new patterns in the dialect of Vienna. But, for the dialect lyric, Artmann’s collection was also new in content, introducing as it did negative images alongside the more traditional positive ones, and using the whole process to create an inner tension: ‘Diese Technik spekuliert auf die Konfrontation des heimatlich-vertraut und harmlos klingenden Dialekts mit dem hinter dieser Maske versteckten bittern Ernst’.” Often it was black humour; often it was simply black: ‘schwarz ja . . . . aber es ist keine Spur von Humor drin; es ist lauter blutiger, zum Teil blutriinstiger Ernst, Verzweiflung ob der Miidigkeit, die man in sich fuhlt und in die totgewiinschte Welt hinausprojiziert’ .

In 1959, Artmann worked together with two younger members of the Group, Friedrich Achleitner and Gerhard Ruhm, on the Alpha volume, hosn rosn baa. However, while the latter two kept more closely to the tenets of concretism, Artmann was more traditional in his structural approach, and appealed both on the regional as well as on the universal level. By the sixth edition of med ana schwoazzn dintn, nineteen thousand copies had been sold, and the author himself was well on the way to becoming father of the new poetry. Berlinger describes the work as a ‘Wendepunkt und Neubeginn in der Geschichte der Dialektlyrik’,’3 which on its two levels attained ‘zum ersten Ma1 in der Geschichte der Dialektlyrik, den Anschluss an eke avantgardistische Literaturtheorie und -praxis’. l4

But Vienna remained Vienna during the early 1960’s, and much of what appeared there seemed to expend itself in an attempt to expose the wartime skeletons in the complaisant Austrians’ cupboard (some were calling the country ‘das Bordell Europas, mit einem ausgezeichneten uberseeischen Ruf‘”), and the Group’s ideas remained underground until the end of the decade, when they often made their reappearance in poets who were not conscious of their debt, and who therefore exposed the Group to the same imitative adulation as was given Groth and the other figures of the nineteenth century. Fortunately, there were others who developed these ideas yet did not indulge in what, with the surprising quickness of criticism accorded to foundering innovators, was already being called the ‘Eingleisigkeit und Starre’ of the Vienna lyricists. Berlinger singles out a few of the leaders amongst these: Reichert and Fruth in Bavaria (collectively known as ‘Benno Hollteuffel’), their successor Josef Wittmann, Kurt Marti in Switzerland, Siegfried Kessemeier in Low German, Georg Holzwarth (unfortunately not followed up by Hoffmann) in Swabia, and Kurt Sigel in Hessen.

Purely in the matter of form, Reichert and Fruth were greatly influenced by the attempts of the Wiener Gruppe to adapt standard German orthography to the needs of Viennese dialect. The two Bavarians particularly favoured such contracted forms as hohxagd for ‘hat er gesagt’, and thus gave popular acceptance to what dialectologists had been writing since the 184O’s.l6 But as far as content was concerned, they left little that was recognizable of their Viennese predecessors. They stripped away the ‘dunkle Romantik’ of Artmann’s b/auboad( ‘Bluebeard’),

‘ICK SNACK PLA‘IT, DU OK’ 419

and replaced it with the here-and-now technology of the motor-car and the pin- ball table, progressing towards the end of the 1960’s to areas up till then taboo in the dialect lyric, e.g. sexual and social criticism, which they often placed in an ironic, macabre light.”

West of Austro-Bavaria, the Swiss had already started their own tradition of concrete poetry, as the experiments of the Eugen Gomringer Press (Frauenfeld) with Bernese dialect well show. However, it was left to Ernst Eggimann and Kurt Marti to import the direct influence of Vienna into the country.ls Marti, a clergyman in Berne, expected his fust collection, Rosa Loui (1967), to be accepted more for its theology than for its language. The opposite happened and his value as an innovator became undisputed.

Marti exerted an early influence on Ernst Burren. Burren’s themes of human weakness, ineffectiveness and fossilized conservatism, rooted in the lack of com- munication, both on the personal level and with God, have now gone far beyond Marti in originality, and comment bitterly on the effete and materialistic aspects of life in Switzerland, where everything not of immediate value is left ‘outside the door’ until it can serve a useful purpose. Cats, dogs, cows and horses are useful, and may be brought inside and fed, but God can wait until one is ready:

e chatz isch vor dr tiir lose yne gibere chli miiuch e hung isch vor dr riir lone yne gib em e chnoche e chue isch vor dr tiir lose yne die cha mer mauche es ross isch vor dr tiir 10s yne das cha me gschire

eine katz ist vor der tiir lass sie ein gib ihr ein bisschen milch ein hund ist vor der tiir lass ihn ein gib ihm einen knochen eine kuh ist vor der tiir lass sie ein die konnen wir melken ein ross ist vor der tiir lass es ein das kann man anspannen

dr liebgott der liebe gott isch vor dr tiir ist vor der tiir chan er es momantli warte kann er ein momentchen warten i chume grad use ich komme gleich nach draussen’g

The irony is trenchant, too, in erbe (1973): tochter nimmt s gaut dr sohn dr hof s autersheim d mueter

die tochter nimmt das geld der sohn den hof das altersheim die mutter

420 ‘ICK SNACK PLATT, DU OK’

Wre other writers, Burren is also particularly concerned with the threat of neo- Nazism. From this it is no great step to out-and-out protest, and Toni Schaller broadens the theme of latent Nazism into that of general Swiss xenophobia and morbid acceptance of authority. Julian Dillier extends the range to anti-nuclear protest.

Ironic distance and social criticism have spread as common elements to German dialect lyricists everywhere, though perhaps nowhere as admuably combined as in the works of the Austrian, Christine Nostlinger, particularly in lba de gaunz oamen Kinda of 1974, where she assumes the role of child-observer in the workmg-class milieu of her parents, reacting to the boredom of continuous televiewing by wishing for a real-life Dracula or Frankenstein to appear and at least keep her from despair and loneliness:

was (ware es) ma liaba, da dracula und da franknschdein und da wampia ligadn im bet bei mia, ois (ah> dasi so alanich do lig und mi nedamoi (nicht einmal) zitan (zittern) drau vua lauta aungsd.

Indeed, society around her appears to be so uncaring that when a slow-witted neighbour begins to expose himself each night in the cellar where she goes for coal, no one is concerned with his moral welfare, but merely with keeping the girl away from there. Her joy at this is great, but not for the obvious reasons:

Fia mi is da depate (schwachsinnige) im kola a segn. Seid i eam drofn (getroffen) hob, brauch i nima konhoin (kohlenholen) ge.

Images of the poor and of suffering, all have their political overtones. Shock is produced without direct statement, linguistic images without specific elaboration, e.g. of her father:

ea red nigs ea duad nigs ea riad (reg) si (sich) ned. Maunchmol ziagdan (zieht er den) roz auf . . . Wauna nima (wenn er nicht mehr) n roz aufziagd wisma (wissen wic) ea schlofd.

Another type is mei liblingsfoab:

Mei liblingsfoab (lieblingsfarbe) is hime mama manta1 blau (himme1 mama mantel blau).

‘ICK SNACK PLATT, DU OK’ 42 1

Wosi (was ich) hob, is hime mama mantal blau; mei gwaund rnei bet mei tola (teller) mei so (see1e)- hime mama mantal blau. Gesdan hobi a kind griagd (gekriegt) mid finga und zechn (zehen) und augn und an bauch und olas vum kind is blau, hime mama mantal blau. De dogdan (Artze) sogn, des kumd vum heat . . .

Other Austrians such as Bernhard Bunker and Hans Haid set themselves against mass tourism and pollution in the Tyrol. For Bunker, what appears to be part of a f sh in a mountain stream turns out to be a contraceptive:

A Schwimmblosn von an Fisch hob i ausn Wossa ausagfongen rnit an Schteckn Wia is mein Mad1 gezagt (gezeigt) hob woas a Presawativ. . . .

For Haid, the Tyrol is full of real people and full of real dirt:

kiiehdreck schoofdreck goassdreck schoofdreck kiiehdreck fremdenverkehr . . . (1976)

Haid’s poems were often so biting that in 1974 his local council banned any further publications which did not have their prior approval.

In the South Tyrol, the same problems (and also specifically Austrian-Italian ones such as the growth of Nazism in a generation which has not known it) are being tackled by Josef Zoderer. In fact, the whole Tyrolean, even Austrian, scene assumes the guise of a family quarrel in which the use of dialect can emphasize the lack of concern for the outsider. The feelings are typified in the now famous version of Herr Karl‘ (1975) by Alfred Gesswein. Comment is superfluous:

422 ‘ICK SNACK P U T T , DU OK’

da hea RoaL schauns schauen sie, i bin a guada mensch i huf an jedn owa de rozbaum wos jezd umanaud renen liasad i fahungen

der h e n h r l

ich bin ein guter mensch ich helfe jedem aber die rotzbuben die jetzt umher rennen liesse ich verhungern

faschdengans mi i bin a bazefisd owa fia de hundsfuada miasad a griag kuma

heans zua i woa ni a naze und i bin a ka naze owa fia de biaschaln kerad da hidla hea

glaums mas i bin da besde mensch i dua kana fliagn wos owa bei den gsindl ware fia de dodesschtrof

verstehen sie mich ich bin ein pazifiit aber fur die hundsfotter musste ein krieg kommen

horen sie zu, ich war nie ein nazi und ich bin auch kein nazi aber ftir die burschlein gehort der hitler her

glauben sie mir es ich bin der beste mensch ich tue keiner fliege was aber bei dem gesindel ware ich fur die todesstrafe20

Similar themes are taken up by poets of Alsace and Swabia, probably the best- known amongst the latter being Friedrich Vogt, who has managed to incorporate into his writings many of the themes of class society and unequal distribution of wealth. As with Christine Nostlinger, sociolinguistic arguments are taken up in a non-specific way by Wilhelm Konig in Tiibingen, and Manfred Bosch in Hegenau, Konig being particularly aware of the platitudinous, ‘surface’ way of life they force one into.

In Alsace, writers have been largely political activists, and since 1951 they have often reflected the right-wing and separatist views of the language minority, sneering and protesting against French policy. From 1960, one of the chief ex- ponents, Andre‘ Weckmann, a prolific writer of narrative prose, lyric, and ‘Horspiele’, has had great success in this type of political defence, and has sought to prevent the dialect itself from becoming merely a hunting ground for folklorists, something which, as he sees it, would be its own death-warrant. Weckmann’s demands receive full media coverage, and some of his fervour has extended into Lorraine and produced a torrent of protest against such projects as the nuclear reactor at Cattenom, in the ‘forgotten hinterland’ of France, and a demand for the introduction of ‘Eis S p r d ’ (unsere Sprache) into the schools.

In the Federal Republic itself, the use of dialect has varied from this pattern, and presents a less obvious protest. To be sure, the Sauerlander Siegfried Kessemeier has included an ecological element in his Vienna-inspired lyrics, such as the effects

‘ICK SNACK PLATT, DU OK’ 42 3

of motorways on the environment, as has the Augsburg civil engineer and poet Rodja Weigand; but amongst the West Germans, dialect appears to be used more to mirror the ‘Mann von der Strasse’, and confront him forcibly with his own opinions: ‘Brachiales, Brutales und Inhumanes nicht selten, Unreflektiertes fast immer, Nachgeredetes en msre . . . l Z 1 . . . ‘als Vorwand und Tarnung tugleich, um diese Gesellschaft unverblumt darzustellen und kritisieren tu konnen’ .2z

Ludwig Soumagne, for example, has no wish to establish dialect purity in his ‘Kolnsch’, but incorporates into it as many New High German words as are necessary to take it to the beginning of the twenty-first century, and reflect the problems of human beings amid a world of high technology. Soumagne is, however, very much aware of the basic contradiction of writing in dialect: once one begins to write at all, one has changed sides and become a ‘Herrschender’.23 In Low German, too, Norbert Johannimloh owes more to the German literary tradition of Gottfried Benn and Bert Brecht than he does to Klaus Groth and Fritz Reuter. Ostensibly writing dialect because he is unable to write with equal ease in New High German (the opposite of what Groth remarks about himself in Pfatt- deutsche Br~eefe),~* Johannimloh refuses to meet fluent speakers of that language on their own ground. Walter Kreye introduces standard German into his Low Ger- man as a ‘Verfremdungseffekt’ of shock proportions, and Oswald Andrae sees it as a means of imposing class delimitations on Low German speakers.

But as Hoffmann remarks in the text about his own native Luxembourg (in which he can find no modern lyric in tune with the new spirit: the nearest is the Saarlander Alfred Gulden) the most lasting monuments of dialect authors have been songs and stage plays:

Wirklich ins Volk gedrungen sind einzig und ak in eine Reihe von Liedern. . . . auch die Vaudevilles von Dicks sind allgemeines Kulturgut geworden, sowie einige wenige andere Theaterstucke. Diese Tatsache erklart sich dadurch, dass Lieder meistens in mundlicher Uberlieferung weitergegeben werden und auch beim Theater das lastige Lesen-Mussen entfallt . 2,

Perhaps, as Hoffmann’s usage would seem to suggest, ‘Rezipient’ is a better description than ‘Leser’ for the audience at large, otherwise, as he remarks in his closing sentence, there is a danger of its remaining ‘eine Sache von Intellektuellen fur Intellektuelle’.26 As Zeit Magazzn put it: ‘Autoren am Werk, die Ausdrucksgrenten ihres Dialekts auftusprengen’ . 2 7 As certain British newspapers might have put it if it had been they who pounced on dialect developments, ‘Youthful eggheads hopeful on dialect shot in arm’. A fond hope, even in a time of evening classes in Low German, were it not for the flourishing theatre in Bavaria.

I1

Anyone going to the modern German ‘Volksstiick’ speclfically to investigate vocalization of lateral fricatives in ‘Stadtmunchener Mundart’ , or the reflexes of

~~

424 ‘ICK SNACK PLAIT, DU OK’

West Germanic ii, is likely to be disappointed, for the actual dialect of the plays assumes signlficance only within a social framework which calls for the interaction of various levels of speech and their normalized variants. It is true, especially in the work of Franz Xaver Kroetz, that the printed text does have the appearance of Austro-Bavarian. Its diminutives end in -l, its second personal plural verbs in -ts, it confuses accusative and dative, yet its pronouns are ihr and not os, euch and not enk. But such rustic purity as is afforded by OJ and enh would be alien to the purpose of the drama, and if performing on a non-Bavarian stage, the actors are only required to imitate Bavarian: ‘Im aussersuddeutschen Raum ist vor allem der Duktus und die Grammatik der bayrischen Sprache reproduzierbar. Ansonsten muss sie als kunstliche aufgefasst werden’.28 In Sperr’s Bayrische Trzlogie the text is not even given the outward appearance of Bavarian.

These, then, are not dialect plays in the accepted sense, and carry no more ‘real’ dialect in them than did the Lancashire plays of Shelagh Delany in the 1960’s, nor, more particularly, the ‘London’ dialect of Edward Bond’s Saved (1965), the first German performance of which in 1967 appears to have acted as a catalyst on what was already present as a revival of Odon von Horvath’s and Marieluise Fleisser’s work of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Horvith’s work had been banned by the National Socialists, and it was not until 1964 that Kusmir undKaroline (1931) was brought to the German stage, followed in 1966 by Geschichten aur dem Wiener- waid (1930) and Fleisser’s Pzoniere in Ingolstadt (1929). This is not, then, the means of individualization used by Hauptmann and his successors down to Zuckmayer, but really something essentially different. Kroetz put it as follows: ‘ich wollte eine Theaterkonvention durchbrechen, die unrealistisch ist: Gesch- watzigkeit . Das ausgepragte Verhalten meiner Figuren liegt im Schweigen; denn ihre Sprache funktioniert nicht’ .29 The characters are human characters, but bound in speech to cliche and proverb as the easiest and closest approximation to what they really would like to say if they could find the words. As an illustration of the technique, Jochen Ziem tells us that large parts of his Es besteht Meinungsfieiheit were transcribed from a tape recording of five men in a bar discussing politics. False starts, long silences, coughs, idiosyncrasies of grammar and syntax characterize spontaneous speech, and when that spontaneous speech also consists of clichPs, proverbs, ‘sympathetic circularity’ and other helpmates, one cannot fail to be reminded of the type of speech which, since Basil Bernstein drew a theory out of several different lines of research in the 1950’s, has become widely known as ‘restricted code’. This exists within a ‘public language’ of surface communication, and is to be contrasted with the ‘elaborated code’ of a ‘formal ianguage’ user:

The speech mode of the lower working class may be distinguished by the rigidity of the syntax and the limited and restricted use of structural possibilities for sentence organization. Thus, these speech elements are highly predictable for any one speaker. . . . A public language is one that contains a large number of idiomatic traditional phrases, from which the individual chooses. Instead of an individual learning to create a language use, within which he can select to mediate his individual feelings, a public

‘ICK SNACK PLAIT, DU OK’ 42 5

language user tends to attach his feelings to social counters or tags that maximize the solidarity of the social relationships at the cost of the logical structure of the communication and the specificity of the feeling. For traditional phrases, idioms etc. tend to operate on a low casual level of generality, in which description, concrete, visual and tactile symbols are employed, aimed at maximizing the emotive rather than the logical impact. 3O

We need look no further than Bond’s Savedfor the embodiment of these ideas: ’Wass yer name?-Yer ain’ ’arf nosey’ . . . “Is last servant died a over-work’ . . . ‘I ain’ made a money, y’know’ . . . ‘Yer got a tongue in yer ’ead’. Contrast this with Kroetz’ Stal’lerhof(1972): ‘Jeder is seines Gluckes Schmied’ . . . ‘Was man sich einbrockt hat, muss man ausloffeln’, and the whole dialogue between Sepp and Seppi in Gezsterbahn (1972):

Beppi: Wer wagt, gewinnt! Sepp: Jeder ist seines Gluckes Schmied. Beppi: Dem Tiichtigen gehort die Welt. Sepp: Sterne reissts vom Himmel, das kleine Wort: ich will. Beppi: Wer wagt, gewinnt!

Real feelings, if they come out at all, emerge as inarticulate juxtapositions:

Saved Pam c?ying: No ‘ome. No friends. Baby dead. Gone. Fred gone. Geisterbahn: Beppi (Sie sagt auswendig sun: Wenn der Georg (her child by Sepp) in ein Heim muss-rot ( = ich bringe mich urn); or in Stallerboj Staller: Magst ein Geheimnis horn: schwanger is. Sepp: Warum? Staller: Ebn. Sepp: Nix wahr is. Alles glogn. Staller: Mir ham Beweise. Sepp: Des geht net. Staller: Genau. Sepp: Nix is.

Any excuse is snatched at to avoid continuing an awkward conversation, whether by a few lines of song, a bit of work that suddenly becomes urgent, or a change of subject-cf. Sperr’s Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern (1966):

Rovo: Was ist schwul? Maria: Sei froh, dass dus nicht weisst. Rovo: 1st denn das was Schlimmes? Maria: Nein. Es ist nur nich schon. Es ist-kummer dich nicht darum. Ich wills dir nicht erklaren. Rovo: Sag do&! Maria: Schau, das sind die ersten Tomaten heuer. (SzenenwecbseLj.

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As in Stallerhof, the speechlessness, which is the modern successor to the empty cliche‘ of Horvhth’s characters, belief in half-truths,j’ groping attraction to the fine words of the formal language (Entha’s ‘Psicherlogie’ for ‘Psychologie’), and so on, are persondied in characters like Beppi-‘ein minderjahrigs Kind, wo zruck- bliebn is’-and the apparent mental-deficient Rovo-‘er redet kein Wort mit mir, stumm, wie ein Fisch.’ In a climate like this, Sepp’s advice to Beppi is like one of the Ten Commandments: ‘Jetzt muss fehlerfrei redn lernen. Das ist das Wichtigste. Wennst redst, bist ein anderer Mensch’.

In day-to-day contact, actions are necessarily allowed to speak louder than words, and while some of the images produced by Kroetz and Sperr, ifuncontroll- ed, could titillate or assault the senses (e.g. on-stage sexual intercourse, rape, masturbation, defecation, abortion, brutal murder), they are all bound up together as expressions of inarticulateness, boredom, and futile reaction to im- posed social convention in a shallow world of ineffectual personal relationships. They tell us that the world is brutal everywhere, not just in the cities, but out in the countryside as well. The act of love is brutal, but a necessary function of the body, and one to be portrayed on the stage, if that stage is free from hypocrisy. Yet the act of love remains an act of love, often the only love possible for a half- blind, half-witted peasant girl. Its consequences, too, are often brutal and any children are brutally murdered, almost as one might squeeze an annoying pimple, and forget about it immediately afterwards. Beppi finds love with Sepp through his rape of her, only to find that when her parents throw her out to live with him, he is dying of cancer. Rovo fmds Abram the only person to understand and com- municate with him, only to see local society branding Abram’s interest as homosexual, and forcing Abram into the murder of Tonka, his pregnant girl- friend. He is hunted down for a reward (which is eventually spent on a new church organ, ‘dass wir in der firche wieder singen konnen’) by his fellow villagers, who turn out to be latent Nazis and call for his castration and death in the gas- chamber.” All of which deprives Rovo of his only channel of meaningful con- versation, and leads him to commit suicide. At his funeral his mother fatuously comments: ‘Wenn er nur manchrnal geredet hatt, der Rovo. Ich versteh es nicht.’

In all these plays, dialect has been assigned the role of go-between. In the absence in Germany of any national ‘Umgangssprache’ that could be used to illustrate the jejune aspects of conversation amongst the lower social groupings, dialect has had to fdl the gap. That others should wish to translate such plays into other dialects is an expression of brotherhood, albeit by intellectuals on behalf of the masses, not of isolation. It is also a sign of the high level of their attainment that this should be the case while the welter of popular dialect plays put out by German radio and television stations is usually of so banal a content as to arouse no more than local interest or have ‘tweedy’ curiosity value elsewhere.

Left with the basic format, however, the ‘Volksstiick’ is limited, and with authors like Wolfgang Bauer, Peter Turrini and Harald Sommer, the temptation to cash in on gratuitous titillation has proved too strong. Bauer’s Magic Afternoon (1968, the title is in English) has become a box-ofice smash because of its sex- games, marijuana and murder. Lack of dramatic insight and progression have coupled with cheap sensationalism to produce the excesses of Sornmer’s A un-

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hamkch schtorka obgong (1970), and Turrini’s rozznjogd (1971). Thus Turrini in Akzente: ‘Das Volk braucht sein Volkstheater, und ich brauche die kleine Freude, es am geliebten Frass ersticken zu lassen’.j3 (After this, however, Turrini began to adapt the classics with Der tollste Tag (1972) based on Beaumarchais’ Mahge de Figaro . )

Indeed, the ease with which the classics can be adapted to the present idiom has also been seen by Kroetz, who has his own version of Hebbel’s Maria Magdalene. But this is not the direction most people would wish to see him continue in (although in Turrini’s case the change has been described as merciful).3* The better direction has been provided by Oberostemeich (1972). Ktoetz described it as follows: ‘Es miissen positive Gestalten auftreten, und die mussen reden kon- nen. Wenn sie nicht reden konnen, ist es schwer, andere zu verlocken, dass sie ihnen folgen.’3’ Although a member of the German Communist Party since 1972, he has nevertheless managed to avoid the overt political Zeitgeist of Eisenwichser (1970) by Heinrich Henkel, the horror and sentimentality of Rheinpromenade (1973) by Karl Otto Muhl, and the popularism of Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Bremer Freiheit (1971) and Blat am Halse der Katze (1972). Kroetz has, in effect, been forced to abandon his wish for a critical peasant-theatre run by peasants for an audience of peasants, as his audience has proved to consist largely of intellec- tuals who have managed to restrain themselves from the public violence that greeted the first staging of Heimarbeit. In Oberostemeich, he returns almost to the petit-bourgeois characters of HorvBth. The theme is present-day materialism and the ‘unnatural’ home-comfort sacrifices one must make in order to finance the child that the husband’s strongest reaction to is to abort. The language is the clichi of the television advertisement, of the salesroom brochure, and the accusa- tion wrapped up in it is directed to the heart of consumer-oriented society and its dehumanized money-grubbing. It is a politically conditioned set of desires that the future generations will have to overcome for themselves:

Anni: Das Kind is eine Ausnahm. Das muss anders werdn wie mir, sonst hatt das ja alles keinen Sinn. Von Anfang an.-Hoffnungsvoll.

But with this move (Kroetz’ plays published in 1979 include Mensch Meier, Der Stramme Max and Wer durchs h u b geht), and it may be a move from what has been called the treatment of ‘symptoms and not ca~ses’3~ of the malaise afflicting modern society, the language-theatre with anything real and new to say is on the decline, and one may eventually find that such plays as Peter Handke’s Kuspar (1968), which deals with linguistic conditioning involved in the growing-up process in a different way, prove to be of greater value: ‘Was wirkliche Liebhaber der Mundartliteratur sogar zu der nicht unbegriindeten Furcht veranlassen konnte, das, was als echte Erneuerung begonnen hat, laufe Gefahr zur modischen Masche zu entarten und als Ephemeride das Schicksal jeder Mode zu erleiden’ .37

What none the less remains is a body of poetry and theatre which is at the present time exciting and new, and, even if short-lived, may well be as seminal as Hauptmann’s De Waber and Groth’s Qaickborn. Where poets such as Fitzgerald Kusz in Nuremberg have actually taken courses in sociolinguistics (‘ich erfuhr von

428 ‘ICK SNACK PLAIT, DU OK’

wissenschaftlicher Seite, was ich in den ersten drei Gymnasialklassen am eigenen Leib schon gespiirt hatte’)38 and actually ‘discovered’ at least some of the theories for themselves, the real test will be to see how far these theories continue to stimulate their interest. In the meantime a great deal of scholarly research and critical fairness can be found in Die Neue Mundartdchtung and, if taken together with a similar survey of the modern German stage,jq will certainly provide the reader with an excellent all-round view of almost all of the dialect writing of value produced in the 1970’s.

NOTES

I A discussion of the new Low German Bible translation was given by Ruth Herrmann in ‘Veerdusend ward satt’, Die &it, 31 October 1975. On a more scholarly level the work of the new poets and dramatists was discussed in ‘Mut zurn Dialekt-Dialekt-Gedichte, Kommentare, Aufsatze’ , Akzente, 1976 (Heft 2) . 133-191, (Heft 4). 311-369. 6. also Gerhard W. Baur and H. R. Fluck (eds), Wamm im Diahkt? Interviews mit zeitgenossiscben Autoren, BernlMunich 1976, which contains interviews with, amongst others, Burren, Deichsel, Eggimann. Kusz, Marti, Reichert, Sigel, Vogt and Weckmann.

SPD-MdB Hans Lemp, December 1975. ’ Der Spiegef, foc. cit., 47

‘ Member of Die Bayerische Dokumentationssteie fur Mundartiiteratur. ja Hildesheim/New York 1978.

Member of L ‘Institut Grand- Ducal de Luxembourg and Das Intentationale Dialekt-Institut, Wien. 6 op. ctt., p. 351. ~ Since 1973, there has been an active drive within the North German churches to use ‘Platt’ at ser-

vices and ceremonies. It comes from ‘De Preesterkring in der Kark’, which currently has about 150 members. They have, without doubt, been responsible for the popularity of the new Bible, although there is also a great deal of secular interest at present in Low German, and the language has been taught in evening classes. particularly to immigrant workers.

C. D. Innes, Modern German D r a m , Cambridge 1979, p. 63. ’ Op. at., p. 36.

’’ Op. at.. p. 48. Iz Ibid., p. 49. l 3 Ibtd., p. 46 I‘ Ibid.. p. 37.

Ibid., p . 144 ’‘ Cf. J. M. Firmenich, Gennaniens VoIkerstimmen. Berlin 1846 ’- Albert Janetschek has taken their i d e y o n orthography one ironic stage further and invites his reader to share in a humorous double play of eye and ear, e.g. Nationalsport/Naziauneschbuad; Kreisky/ greisgi; HalbstarkenrepubWr/ hoebschdoaknrewubligg. l 8 Hoffman, p . 242, gives a clear analysis of Eggmann’s Bdnter Schriftsteeuerverein, in which he finds all the Vienna ‘Sprachspiel. m i m a l e Ausnutzung der unverbrauchten lautlichen Miiglichkeiten des Dialekts. Reduktion, Kombinatorik, Symmetrie, “Konstellation” der Worter’ which would point directly to the model. l9 Bern 1971. The translation is Hoffmann’s, p. 251. 2o Hoffmann’s translation, p. 151

Mii etner schwarzen Tinte, Gedichte aus Breitensee

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21 op. cit., p. 59 22 Ibid., p. 269. 23 Cf. ibid., p. 276. 24 J. Bodewadt (ed.), Bnefi uber Hochdeutsch und Plattdeutsch, 1914, p. 24: ‘Als ich zuerst anfing, plattdeutsch zu produzieren, war es mir fast unmoglich, Plattdeutsch zu denken. Allenthalben schlichen sich unbemerkt die Formeln hochdeutscher Konstruktion und Gedankenfolge ein, so dass ich fast verzweifelte, zu meinern Ziel gelangen zu konnen.’ ” Op. a t . , p. 292. 26 Ibid., p. 355. ’’ Zeit Magazin, loc. cif., 42. 28 Kroetz’ own introduction to Geirterbahn, Franldurt 1972. 29 Michael Toteberg, ‘Der Kleinbiirger auf der Biihne’, Akzente, loc. cit., p. 167 30 B. Ekrnstein, ‘Social Class and Linguistic Development’, in Education, Economy and Society, eds Halsey, Hond, Anderson, New York 1961, pp. 291ff. 3’ Cf. Kroetz, Heimrbeit, 1971:

Martha: Vielleicht weil ich auf dem Bauch gelegen bin.-Da ernpfangt man leichter. Willy: Meine Mutter hat sich drei Kinder mit einer einfachen Stricknadel abtriebn. Martha: Das kann ich auch probieren. Eine Stricknadel hab ich. 32 A recurring image in Kroetz as well as Sperr and the poets, cf. Wildwechsel(l971):

Erwin: (Die Nazis) ham die Judn vergast. Gut, das war nicht recht! Aber lieber vergasn’s mir hundert- tausend Judn, als dass mir so eine Sau mein Kind verunglimpft . , . . Den Bermeier miisstert man kastriern, einfach kastriern, das is das einzige. . . . Wenn’s eim so geht in der Dernokratie, da denkt man ebn zuriick an bessere Zeitn, da kommt das ganz von selber. 33 Michel Toteberg, op. Cit . , 172. 34 Michael Patterson, German Theatre Today, London 1976, p. 94. 35 Michael Toteberg, op. cit., 168. 36 Michael Patterson, op. cit., p. 99. 37 Op. cit., p. 348. 38 Fitzgerald Kusz, ’Poetisch, linguistisch, sozialkritisch’, A h e n t e , loc. cit., 141 39 E.g. C . D. Innes, op. at.; Michael Patterson, op. cit.