SOURCE: Gottfried Keller: Life and Works, Oswald Wolff Publishers, 1968, 258 p.

In the following excerpt, Lindsay examines stylistic and thematic elements of the short fiction comprising Sieben Legenden and Das Sinngedicht.

Although not published till 1871, the Legends originated during Keller's days in Berlin, where he read Legends of the Saints [Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten, Legenden, 1804] published in 1804 by Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten, a Protestant minister from the island of Rügen. Kosegarten hoped that his legends would be a success among German Catholics, and he dedicated them to the Emperor, without having first of all ensured that the Papists would be willing to accept this unsolicited gift. In fact, the Austrian religious censors forbade his legends. It is difficult to see why they objected to the work. Kosegarten blindly and uncritically accepts the strange and miraculous events described in his sources. He states that he has not altered the stories, except...