SOURCE: "Images of Birds in Arnim's Majoratsherren" in German Life and Letters, Vol. XXXIII, No. 3, April, 1980, pp. 190-98.

In the essay below, Casey argues that Arnim's novella "exhibits a detailed and extended avian imagery which lends an intricate coherence to the story. "

About the genesis of Ludwig Achim von Arnim's novella Die Majoratsherren we are certain only that it first appeared in the Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen auf das Jahr 1820 and was later, in 1839, included in the second volume of Wilhelm Grimm's edition of Arnim's collected works. Walther Migge, the editor of the most authoritative edition of Arnim's work, finds, somewhat vaguely formulated, stimulus for its creation in the '. . . nach 1815 einsetzende allgemeine Interesse für Magnetismus und Somnambulismus.'

The story has met with very little critical approval. Arnim's friends, Brentano, Görres and the Brothers Grimm, had expressed themselves less than enthusiastically on his earlier...