SOURCE: Rankin, Jamie. “One Level Removed: Narrative Framing as a Didactic Device in the Rahmennovellen of Jeremias Gotthelf.” Colloquia Germanica: Internationale Zeitschrift fur Germanistik 23, nos. 3-4 (summer 1990): 253-71.

In the following essay, Rankin analyzes three of Gotthelf's novellas in order to illustrate how the structure of these works served their author's purpose.

Mir [lag] die ganze Welt am Herzen, wo ich helfen konnte, stund ich ein, wo ich Ungerechtigkeit sah, stellte es mir die Haare zu Berge, wo ich Dummheit sah, unter welcher andere litten, geisselte ich sie, trieb mich fast keck und übermütig …

(EB [Ergänzungsbände] 9: 285-86)¹

Given Jeremias Gotthelf's professed motivation for his literary endeavors, it only follows that the question of didacticism has occupied readers of his numerous novels, novellas, and Kalendergeschichten ever since he decided to wage his battles on the printed page. Gotthelf never disguised his intention to teach—as a...