SOURCE: "Static and Dynamic Images as Thematic Motifs in C. F. Meyer's Die Versuchung des Pescara," in Michigan Germanic Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring, 1990, pp. 44-67.

In the following essay, Laane explores the variety of imagery used in Die Versuchung des Pescara.

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's commitment to impart pictorial force to language is well known. Profoundly influenced by Romance literature with its accent on plastic form and sharp contours, and awed by the monumental grandeur of Michelangelo's statues which transmute emotion into compelling visual representations, Meyer found a locus for these ideals in Friedrich Theodor Vischer's teachings which emphasize the concretization of ideas. Gestures in Meyer's novellas become symbols of the inner man; scenic settings and costumes represent an obsession to unite the tangible in objects with their felt meanings. The metaphorical dimension of language is exploited to a degree rarely found in German literature. "In der deutschen Literatur...