SOURCE: "Fagon's Defeat: Some Remarks on C. F. Meyer's Das Leiden eines Knaben," in The Germanic Review, Vol. LII, No. 1, January, 1977, pp. 29-43.

In the following essay, Swales claims that Meyer's Das Leiden eines Knaben dramatizes the problem of artistic construction, which, through its very engagement with experience, introduces a certain mediation and detachment from the world represented in the work of art.

Das Leiden eines Knaben is, like many of C. F. Meyer's stories, a "Rahmenerzählung," and Meyer spends much time and space on the framework situation. King Louis XIV of France goes, as is his wont, to the rooms of Madame de Maintenon in the early evening. He complains to her of the impolite treatment which Fagon, his personal physician, has accorded to Père Tellier, the King's newly appointed father confessor. Fagon appears, and renews the attack on Tellier in terms of extraordinary virulence...