Description
Book SynopsisFirst published in German in 1804, under the nom de plume "Bonaventura," this is a dark, twisted, and comic novel, in which the narrator and anti-hero is not Bonaventura, but a night watchman named Kreuzgang, a failed poet, actor, and puppeteer who claims to be the spawn of the devil himself.
Trade Review"But be that as it may, poetizing nowadays is everywhere still in a critical state, because there are so few deranged people anymore and such a surplus of rational ones is on hand that they can, out of their own means, occupy all specialties, even poetry. A sheer madman like me finds no employment under such circumstances, and therefore I'm merely skirting poetry now; that is, I have become a humorist, for which, as night watchman, I have the greatest leisure." (from "Second Nightwatch")"
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction THE NIGHTWATCHES Nightwatch 1. The dying freethinker Nightwatch 2. The devil's apparition Nightwatch 3. Stony Crispin's discourse on the chapter de adulteriis Nightwatch 4. Woodcuts; along with the life of a madman as a marionette play Nightwatch 5. The brothers Nightwatch 6. Doomsday Nightwatch 7. Self-portraiture - Funeral oration on a child's birthday - The itinerant minstrel - Suit for slander Nightwatch 8. The poet's apotheosis - Farewell letter to life - Hanswurst's prologue to the tragedy Man Nightwatch 9. The madhouse - Monologue of the insane creator of the world - The reasonable fool Nightwatch 10. The winter's night - Love's dream - The white and the crimson bride - The nun's burial - Run through the musical scale Nightwatch 11. Premonitions of one born blind - The vow - The first sunrise Nightwatch 12. The solar eagle - The immortal wig - The false pigtail - Apology of life - The comedian Nightwatch 13. Dithyramb on spring - The title without book - The invalid home of the gods - The backside of Venus Nightwatch 14. The love of two fools Nightwatch 15. The marionette theater Nightwatch 16. The Bohemian woman - The man with second sight - The father's grave Afterword: Authorship and Reception Notes Select Bibliography
