Home >> Austrian Studies, Volume 15, Number 1

Puritans into Revolutionaries: Butler's Hudibras and Ratschky's Melchior Striegel

Author: Robertson, Ritchie

Source: Austrian Studies, Volume 15, Number 1, 1 December 2007 , pp. 17-40(24)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

English satirical writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was widely read in Austria during the Enlightenment period. The mock-heroic poem by Joseph Franz Ratschky, Melchior Striegel (1793-95), owes considerable debt to Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1663). While Butler satirizes Puritans, Ratschky satirizes Jacobins, whose `conspiracy' was uncovered in 1794. Both authors wish to dissociate themselves from their satirical targets: one may therefore suspect some opportunism. But both also write with great comic invention and linguistic virtuosity, giving free play to their imagination in a way that sometimes runs counter to their polemical intentions.

German
Englische Satiren aus dem 17. und 18. Jahrhundert fanden große Resonanz im Österreich der Aufklärung. Besonders Joseph Franz Ratschkys komisches Epos Melchior Striegel (1793-95) verrät den Einfluss von Samuel Butlers Hudibras (1663). Während Butlers Satire den Puritanern gilt, zielt Ratschky auf die Jakobiner, deren angebliche Verschwörung 1794 aufgedeckt wurde. Da beide Autoren sich von den Gegenständen ihrer Satire distanzieren wollten, darf man einen gewissen Opportunismus vermuten. Dennoch legen beide einen komischen Erfindungsgeist und eine sprachliche Virtuosität an den Tag, die manchmal ihren polemischen Intentionen zuwiderlaufen.
More about this publication?
  • Austrian Studies is an annual journal reflecting sustained interest in the distinctive cultural traditions of the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian Republic. By publishing a wide range of articles in English, together with a selection of book reviews, it aims to make recent research accessible to a broadly based international readership.

    The focus is on Austrian culture from 1750 to the present. Literature is considered in relation to psychology, philosophy, political theory, music, theatre, film, and the visual arts. 'Austrian' includes German-language culture of former areas of the Habsburg Empire, such as Prague and the Bukovina, as well as the work of people of Austrian origin living abroad. Austrian interactions with other linguistic and ethnic groups -- the Jewish communities of Austria-Hungary, for example -- are also taken into account.

    Each volume of Austrian Studies has a coherent but broadly conceived theme, and reviews of the most important recent publications in the field of Austrian studies. Each volume also includes a number of substantial review essays devoted either to keeping readers up to date with major cultural debates and events, or to areas of scholarship in which activity has been particularly intense.
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