Friedrich Schiller, Der Geisterseher

Dennis Mahoney (University of Vermont)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1787 - 1789

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Friedrich Schiller’s

Der Geisterseher. Eine Geschichte aus den Memoires des Grafen von O**

[

The Ghost-Seer: From the Memoirs of Count von O**

, 1789; third revised edition 1798; translated as

The Spiritualist

by Francis J. Lamport] appeared in five installments between 1787 and 1789 in Schiller’s journal

Thalia

before being published in book form. Written as a critique of the resurgent interest in communication with the spirit world in the final decades of the eighteenth century,

Der Geisterseher

makes use of plot elements drawn from Gothic romances in the wake of Horace Walpole’s

The Castle of Otranto

(1765), whose setting in medieval Italy and alleged origin as a translation from an old manuscript helped make palatable to a modern, enlightened audience its depictions of…

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1659 words

Citation: Mahoney, Dennis. "Der Geisterseher". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 September 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21899, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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