Intermedial Connections in Theodor Fontane’s work L’Adultera
Süreyya İlkılıçTheodor Fontane (1819-1898) is one of the most important representatives of the Realist Movement and German Literature in the 19th century. Fontane, who has works in many different fields as a writer provides information about the German society of the period in which he lived in his works based on real events. Fontane shows artistically the sociocultural structure of society from a critical perspective, especially in his Berlin novels that he wrote between 1875 and 1898. L’Adultera is the first novel written by Fontane as part of his Berlin novels and the only one of his women’s novels that has a happy ending. In the first place, L’Adultera the word of Italian origin in the title gives the impression that it refers to a protagonist woman who falls in love with another man and leaves her husband and children, thus destroying her marriage. However, L’adultera is a painting by the famous painter Tintoretto, which is used as the main motif in the work according to the author. In this study, the media in Fontane’s L’Adultera are included and the impacts of these media on the work are investigated. Although the term “media” refers to written and visual means of communication in particular, paintings, music, movies, letters and newspapers are also included in the scope of media. Intermediality refers to the coexistence and interaction of at least two media. Even though its practical application reaches far back into the past, Intermediality has been theoretically used as a method in literary text analysis from the 1990s.
Theodor Fontane’nin L’Adultera Eserinde Medyalararası Bağlantılar
Süreyya İlkılıçTheodor Fontane (1819-1898) on dokuzuncu yüzyıl Alman Edebiyatının ve Realist Akımın en önemli temsilcilerindendir. Yazar olarak gazetecilik, denemeler, edebiyat ve sanat eleştirileri, mektup vd. gibi farklı pek çok alanda eserler vermiş olan Fontane, gerçek olaylardan yola çıkarak yazdığı eserlerinde, yaşamış olduğu dönemdeki Alman toplumu üzerine bilgiler sunmaktadır. Fontane özellikle 1875 ile 1898 yılları arasında kaleme aldığı Berlin romanlarında toplumun sosyokültürel yapısını eleştirel bir bakış açısıyla sanatsal bir şekilde aktarmaktadır. L’Adultera, Fontane’nin Berlin romanları kapsamında yazdığı ilk roman olmasının yanı sıra yazarın kadınlar üzerine yazdığı romanlar (Frauenromane) içinde mutlu son ile biten tek eser olma özelliği taşımaktadır. Eserin adındaki İtalyanca kökenli evlilik yıkan anlamındaki ‘L’Adultera’ kelimesi ilk etapta, eserde başka bir erkeğe âşık olarak eşini ve çocuklarını terk eden, dolayısıyla evliliğini yıkan başkahraman kadını ifade ediyor izlenimini vermektedir. Oysa ‘L’adultera’, yazarın ifadesi ile eserde ana motif olarak kullanılan ünlü ressam Tintoretto’nun tablosudur. Bu çalışmada Fontane’nin L’Adultera eserinde bulunan medyalara yer verilmiş olup bu medyaların eserdeki etkileri araştırılmıştır. Medya terimi ile özellikle yazılı ve görsel iletişim araçları anlaşılsa da tablo, müzik, film, mektup, gazete de medya kapsamına girmektedir. Medyalararasılık, en az iki medyanın birlikteliğini ve etkileşimini ifade eder. Pratikte uygulaması çok eskilere dayanmasına rağmen Medyalararasılık teorik anlamda 1990’lardan sonra edebi metin analizlerinde yöntem olarak kullanılmaktadır.
Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) is one of the most important representatives of the Realist Movement and German Literature in the 19th century. Fontane, who has works in many different fields as a writer (such as journalism, essays, literary and art criticism, letters, etc.), provides information about the German society of the period in which he lived in his works based on real events. Fontane shows artistically the sociocultural structure of society from a critical perspective, especially in his Berlin novels that he wrote between 1875 and 1898. L’Adultera is the first novel written by Theodor Fontane as part of his Berlin novels and the only one of his women’s novels that has a happy ending. In the first place, the word L’Adultera in the title of the work gives the impression that it refers to a protagonist woman who falls in love with another man and leaves her husband and children, thus destroying her marriage. However, L’Adultera is a painting by the famous painter Tintoretto, which is used as the main motif in the work according to the author. In this study, the media in Fontane’s L’Adultera are included and the impacts of these media on the work are investigated. Although the term “media” refers to written and visual means of communication in particular, paintings, music, movies, letters and newspapers are also included in the scope of media. Intermediality refers to the coexistence and interaction of at least two media. Even though its practical application reaches far back into the past, Intermediality has been theoretically used as a method in literary text analysis from the 1990s.
L’Adultera was published in 1880 as a preprint in the magazine Nord und Süd and in 1882, as a book by the Salo Schottländer publishing house in Breslau. With its publication, the work caused a sensation both because it was based on a real event, the Ravené scandal, and because of the positive outcome of the work. In the novel L’Adultera, the marriage of the seventeen-year-old Melanie de Caparoux and the forty-two-year-old Ezechiel van der Straaten, who have been married for ten years, ends when Melanie falls in love with Ebenezer Rubehn, who comes to their home as a guest, and leaves her husband and her two daughters.
Tintoretto’s L’Adultera appears twice in the second part of the novel, as a copy of the painting and in the last part, the twenty-second chapter called Reconciliation (Versöhnt / Versöhnung), as a medallion in miniature form. The painting, which depicts the woman caught in adultery being brought before Jesus to decide what her punishment will be, is given to Melanie as a gift on both occasions in the novel. The background of the painting is based on the parable-like narrative in the Gospel of John in which Jesus’ forgiveness comes to the fore.
In this study, Theodor Fontane’s novel L’Adultera, which is the first of Theodor Fontane’s Berlin and women novels and the only one with a positive ending, is analyzed within the scope of intermedia connections. It has been determined that Fontane conveys the plot, the social structure of Germany in the nineteenth century and especially the Ravené incident, which forms the background of the novel, through various media with a realist perspective. Fontane, who is active in many fields of writership such as journalism, writing, criticism and reporting, is not only a good media user and observer, but also a media producer through the many works he has written. It is seen that Fontane, who is constantly intertwined with media, uses many different media in L’Adultera. In this context, Fontane’s work includes various media such as paintings, music, written works, architectural structures and newspapers. It is noteworthy that Fontane uses these media especially in the communication between the figures and in the construction of the work. In addition, through the media Fontane offers the reader the opportunity to have a premonition about the plot of the story. For example, gifting the painting L’Adultera at the beginning of the novel implies that the female character will betray her husband. It is also seen that the media used in the novel are reshaped and gain meaning within the scope of the novel. In particular, while the L’Adultera painting is perceived objectively in the museum where it is exhibited, it gains a different meaning in the home environment and is perceived by the characters in a personalized way. The characters’ interest in different media plays an important role in the fiction of the work. In this context, especially Wagner’s music is seen to mediate emotional intimacy and bonding between the figures. With L’Adultera, Fontane presents an event that has happened in an artistic way through media. As a written media, Fontane’s novel conveys the sociocultural structure of the society of that period to the present day.
