[a]An English translation was published in 1886 under the title "Rosita" in America.
The success of the "Waldröschen" did not just seem to turn out well, but even quite extraordinarily. Münchmeyer wrote in his letters that he was very satisfied. He repeatedly wrote that he considered himself to be saved even now, after such a short time, for he did hope that the novel would continue to attract as many readers as it had up to now. He suggested that we should not stay in Hohenstein, but move to Dresden, since he wanted me to be near him. My wife enthusiastically jumped on the idea and made sure that it was carried out as quickly as possible. By no means, I offered any resistance. Especially since during my time in Hohenstein, I had to think more and more often of the warning, which was to be read in the Bible teacher's book. In spite of this warning, I had not just settled down at the place of my birth, but had also taken a wife from there. For some time, I had tended towards regarding the contents of this passage of the book as a superstition, but soon afterwards, I regarded it again with the eyes of an psychologist and was finally, by the weight of the facts, forced to realize that a single swimmer can at any rate cross muddy waters easier than when he has to take a second person along who can neither swim nor is willing to swim. Therefore, this move was rather what I had wanted, and yet, as a matter of caution, I did not move to Dresden itself, but rather to Blasewitz, to have more freedom. Even there, Münchmeyer called on me right away, and repeated his visits several time a week. A contact developed between him and us, which was quite advantageous in the beginning. I worked to hard that I did almost never permitted myself to relax. This novel progressed very rapidly, and its success grew to such an extent that Münchmeyer asked me to write a second one and possibly even several more. I did not suspect that my decision concerning this wish of his would be a highly important one for me and that a positive answer could become a source of unspeakable misery and unpronounceable torture for me. I only looked at the alleged advantages, but did not see the danger.
This danger developed, as it did once before, out of my literary plans. Münchmeyer had not forgotten these plans; he still knew them very well. Now, he reminded me of them. Because I had given up my job in his business, I had not been able to carry them out, then. But now, I was no employee, but a free man, who could not be kept from doing as he pleased by anything. And the most important thing was: I did not need to stretch what I wanted to write, as I had to do with Pustet, over many annual sets of a magazine, but I could swiftly write it all, one thing after another, to publish what was now printed in booklets, later, in the form of books. This enticed me. On top of it, there was the constant insistence of my wife, who could very easily silence the minor objections I had to make. In short, I gave my consent to write several novels more and this at the very same conditions as the "Waldröschen". So, these works also had to revert to me after the twenty thousandth subscriber with all rights included, and then, I was to payed a "fine gratification". There was just a single change, and this was that I received royalties of fifty marks per booklet for these novels, instead of just thirty-five for the "Waldröschen".
Due to this agreement, this was the beginning of a time for me, of which I cannot think today without satisfaction, but also not without a feeling of deep shame. I am not asking, whether I am hurting my reputation by being thus honest; it is my duty to say the truth, nothing else. At this time, I worked with an almost feverish zeal. I did not have to spent much effort on looking for topics like other authors; after all, I had made extensive lists of topics for myself, I only had to turn to, to instantly find what I was looking for. And all of them were already completely thought out; I only had to carry them out; I only needed to write. And I did the latter with an eagerness, which did not let me look either left or right, and this in particular, this was the very thing I wanted. I had to realize that there was no other happiness for me in life than only this one, which was derived from my work. Therefore, I worked, I worked so much and with so much pleasure, so much pleasure! This restless zeal enabled me to forget that I had been mistaken concerning my life's bliss and was now leading an even much, much lonelier life than ever before. This deep, internal loneliness urged me to be restlessly busy, to fill the dreary desolation, and it unfortunately made me indifferent in respect to the necessity of having to be cautious in matters of business. In Münchmeyer's company, so many things happened which might have caused me to be vigilant, so that I had more than a sufficient reason to ensure as much as possible the future accessibility and integrity of everything I wrote for him. Not thinking of this was a mistake, which I can excuse, but cannot forgive myself for, even up to this day.
Münchmeyer had become a regular caller of ours. In Blasewitz, he had rented some kind of a bachelor's apartment, to be able to spent his Saturdays and Sundays more comfortably with us. He also came in the evenings of other days, and almost always, he brought his brother along and very often other persons as well. Though he wished that, by no means, I should allow this to disturb me in my work, he could not keep me from being the master of my apartment, and then, when this had become impossible to me, I did not hesitate to give the apartment up and to move away from Blasewitz, to the city. My new apartment was in one of the most quiet and most remote streets, and my new landlord, a very forceful owner of a castle and a manorial estate, did not permit any disturbing noise and generally nothing he deemed unnecessary in his house. This was the very thing I had been looking for. There, I found the internal and external quiet and concentration I needed. Münchmeyer came a few more time, than he stayed away. Instead, I do not know why, we received invitations from Mrs. Münchmeyer, to accompany her on her Sunday walks through the forest and the heath. She had been advised to take these walks by a physician, who had prescribed deep breaths of fresh air for her. Whether I liked it or not, I had to take part in them, because this was my wife's wish, whose reasons I unfortunately was unable to appreciate. She did not get used to the seclusiveness of our present apartment; she got into an argument with the landlord. I had to terminate the lease. We moved out, to a noisy apartment of the American quarter, which was right above a public bar, so that I could not work. Then, she became ill. The physician advised her to take very early walks in the "Large Garden", the world-famous park of Dresden. Such prescriptions of a physician have to be obeyed. I had no reason to prevent these walks, which started between four and five o'clock in the morning and lasted for about three hours. I did not know that Mrs. Münchmeyer had also been ill and that she, too, had been instructed by her physician to go on early morning walks in the "Large Garden". Only after a long, very long time, I found out what had happened during those walks. I had not just lost touch with my wife's soul, but I had also lost her in business matters. Every day, early in the morning, the two ladies sat together in a cafe of the "Large Garden" and practised a kind of housewife's business politics, the effects of which I did not get to feel until much later. I put an end to it and moved away from Dresden, to Kötzschenbroda, the outermost point of the periphery of Dresden's suburbs.
Even before this, I had managed to finish my last novel for Münchmeyer. I had written five of them for him, in a time of only four years. In regard to the later allegations in court that I had not been working hard for Münchmeyer, but had been lazy, just name me an author who has coped with a larger workload and has, at the same time, been working for other publishers as well. With this, let me put an end to my "time at the colportage" for today. -- -- --
When I am talking about my literary work here, I am referring to those books the critics have been or still are devoting their attention to. Those books the critics have ignored, no matter whether it happened intentionally or unintentionally, may also be skipped here. Among these are my humorous short stories, my village-tales from the Ore Mountains, and a few other things which still lie hidden in the newspapers, without being collected in books. I could also list my "Thoughts of Heaven" among those, since no critic seems to dare to touch them since Mr. Hermann Cardauns happened to cause such a wondrous embarrassment for himself by them. As we all know, he wrote: "But as a lyrical poet, we have to say `no' to him", though the entire collection does not contain a single lyrical poem! I also do not have to discuss my so-called "Union or Spemann"-volumes[a]here, because they have not been attacked anywhere, though I am only attacked in my capacity as an author for young people, and these are the only things I have written for the young generation. So, I will only deal with the "traveller's tales", published by Fehsenfeld, and the "trashy novels", which had been published by Münchmeyer; the latter I will discuss in the next chapter.
[a]This refers to a series of stories which were first published in a magazine for boys, published by Wilhelm Spemann, and were later collected in several books, which were published by a company called "Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft".
As mentioned before, my "traveller's tales" have to rise among the Arabs from the desert up to the Jebel Marah Durimeh and among the American Indians from the jungle and the prairie up to the Mount Winnetou. On this path, the reader shall develop from a low anima-person up to the realization of what it means to be a nobly spirited person. At the same time, he shall experience how the anima transforms on this path into a soul and a mind. Therefore, these tales start in the first volume in the "desert". In the desert, i.e. in the nothingness, in complete ignorance about everything which concerns the anima, the soul, and the mind. Stepping out into the desert and opening his eyes, the first thing my Kara Ben Nemsi, the first person narrator, the "self", mankind's great question, gets to see is a strange, little fellow, who is riding towards him on a large horse, has invented a long, famous name for himself, and even maintains that he was a Hadji, though he finally has to admit that he has never been to one of the holy cities of Islam, where the honourable title of a Hadji is obtained. You see, that I am dressing up a genuinely German, and therefore domestic, psychological riddle into a foreign, oriental garment, to make it more interesting and to be able to solve it in a more understandable manner. This is what I mean when I maintain that all of these traveller's tales have to be interpreted as parables, i.e. figuratively or symbolically. There is no mysticism or anything similar involved. My symbols are so clear, so transparent, that nothing mystical can hide behind them at all.
This Hadji, who calls himself Hadji Halef Omar and adds even his father and grandfathers' names with the title Hadji to his own, symbolises the human anima, which pretends to be the soul or even the mind, without even knowing what a soul or a mind really is. This is a daily occurrence among us, not just in ordinary life, but also among learned people, but there such a blindness towards this mistake that I have to resort to Arabian characters and Arabian conditions to let the blind eyes see. Therefore, I send this Halef to Mecca in one of the very first chapters, which transforms his lie into the truth, because he is now really a Hadji, and then, immediately afterwards, I let him get acquainted with his "soul" -- -- -- Hannah[a], his wife!
[a]This is a misspelling in the original text. The character is actually called Hanneh.
I hope that this example, which I take from my very first volume, says clearly what I want and how my books have to be read, to get to know their real contents. Let me follow it up with a second example: Kara Ben Nemsi is with the Persian tribe of the Jamikun. This tribe is to be destroyed by the people of the Sillan. Then, the ustad, the leader of the Jamikun, sends a messenger to the shah, to ask him for help. This messenger has not even reached the shah yet, when he meets with the shah's hosts, who are telling him that they have been sent by the shah to help the Jamikun. Thus, the shah had granted the ustad's request, even before it has reached him. But the shah represents God, and thus, I interpret by this tale the Christian teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:8: "Your father knows what you require, before you ask him!" Furthermore, the ustad is nobody else but Karl May, and the people of Jamikun are his readers, which are to be destroyed by the Sillan. So, I am telling purely German events in a Persian disguise and render them by these means understandable for friends and enemies alike. Is this not a parable? Not symbolic? It certainly is! And could it be mystic? Not in the very least! It is so obviously a parable and so little mystic that, to be honest, everybody who would deny the former and suppose the latter would seem to me like a person who would deserve a name which I do not want to mention. Whoever does not go about reading my books with unconditionally hostile intentions and is honestly willing will, without much of an effort, find that their contents consist of almost nothing but parables. And to him who has once reached this realization, the numerous fables of heaven will quite surely not remain unnoticed, which are strewn all over these parables and which have to form the actual, deepest contents of my traveller's tales. These fables are also the material out of which I will have to develop my real life-work in the end of my final days.
After all, even my very first character, Hadji Halef Omar, is already a fable, the fable of the lost human soul, which can never be found again, unless it finds itself. And this Hadji is my own anima; yes, he is the anima of Karl May! By describing all the flaws of this Hadji, I disclose my own faults, and thereby, I make a confession the likes of which was probably never made before thus comprehensively and thus honestly by any author. I may very well maintain that I do not deserve in the least certain allegations which are being made by my opponents. If, for a change, these opponents would dare to talk thus openly about themselves as I talk about myself, then this so-called Karl-May-problem would have reached that state a long time ago, which it eventually has to reach, whether they like it or not. For this Karl-May-problem is also a parable. It is nothing else but that great, general problem of mankind, which countless millions have already endeavoured to solve, without achieving any tangible result. Just the same, they have already, for several decades, endeavoured to work on me, without producing more than this pathetic caricature as which I live in the brains and the writings of those who feel called upon to solve problems, but always do this just there where there are none.
Let me furthermore name the fable of "Marah Durimeh", the soul of mankind, the fable of "Shakara", that noble soul of a woman, sent by God, this woman whom I have described with the features of my present wife. And then there are the fables of the "redeemed devil", the "immured God", the "petrified prayer", the "calcified souls", the "Beit-Ullah's columns of roses", the "jump into the past", the "jemma of the living and the dead", the "battle at the Jebel Allah", the "Lake Mahalama", the "mountain of the royal tombs", the "mir of Jinnistan", the "mir of Ardistan", the "city of the deceased", the "Jebel Muchallis", the "watershed of El Hadd", and many, many more. Considering these mentally and spiritually so significant, yes even hard, contents of my novels, it would be incomprehensible how they could be described as "literature for young people" and I as an "author for young people", if we would not know that all who commit this mistake have either not understood them or have not read them at all. Even "Winnetou", which seems to be so easy to read, requires, when it approaches its end in the fourth volume, a reflection and understanding, which would surely be asking too much from a seventh-grader or a teenaged girl! When some people nevertheless continue using these expressions "literature for young people" and "author for young people", I have to describe this as an intentional misrepresentation, which is beneath every decent and serious critic.
But once the admission is made, honestly and according to the truth, that my "traveller's tales" have not been written for the young generation, the foundation of the nowadays commonplace supposition that they were harmful has been removed. Let them only be read by those to whom they are not harmful; I would not force anybody else to do so! What is the reason and purpose of all these allegations, I am now confronted with in hundreds of newspapers? As soon as one takes a closer look at these allegations, they lose all of their worth. I used to be praised; now, I am disapproved of. This has become the current fashion and will, like every fashion, turn into its opposite again. But this fashion is not just a fashion, but a scheme! Even if now my books were no longer read by anybody, this could not worry me in the least, for I know that this scheme will be found out very soon, resulting in the appropriate reaction. Moreover, if had fed my readers with nothing but entertainment, I would have to disappear from the scene, never to reappear again, and would be understanding enough, without having to be told so, to submit to this fate. Butduring my "life and my efforts" I have committed mistakes, which were just too many and just too severe, for me to be allowed to perish and to disappear forever just like that. I have to undo the damage!Whatever a mortal has sinned, he has to repent and atone for, and blessed is he who is granted an opportunity by heaven not to take his guilt with him beyond death, but to pay already for it here. I want to do this; I may do this, and I will do this! Moreover, I boldly state: I have already done this! I have already given to the law of man everything it had a right to demand from me a long time ago; I do not owe it anything any more! And what extends beyond those articles of the law created by man, I will settle by dedicating all that I am still going to write to this great creditor, who knows very well, whether I owe more than those others who think themselves better than May.
I am convinced that my sins, as far as I am to blame for them, are only in the area of my personal life, but not in my literature; in the latter area, I not conscious of any misdeeds. What I have achieved through my "traveller's tales", will be revealed only after my death by the thousands of letters I have received, but even then, only my biographer will get to see them; they will not be published. These works used to be praised and adored, until one day, a certain unscrupulous person had nothing better to do than to state in public that I had also written other things aside from them, but that those were "abysmally" indecent. Even if this had been true, it could not have changed the "traveller's tales", neither their inner contents nor their external form. Nevertheless, from this day on, they were first regarded with suspicion, then they were slandered more and more, and finally they were even declared to be perfectly harmful and were expelled from the libraries, where they used to be welcomed before. Why? Had they changed? No! Had the bibliographical customs, the laws of morality changed? No! Had the needs of the readers become different? This is not it either! But what other reason was there? This was simply because of this circle of people from the realm of trashy literature and colportage, who were determined to, as they themselves used to put it, "destroy me". But is it humanly possible that such a circle of people could gain such an extensive and incomprehensible influence on the world literature and its critics? Unfortunately yes! I will have to write about this in the next chapter. This mob does not even stop at casting their own sins and literary crimes upon me and at presenting themselves as spotless! There are so-called critics which have been staining my reputation for as long as ten years with all kinds of slander on account of the novels I wrote for Münchmeyer, but have not blamed the publisher a single time in even the slightest extent. I call this a disgrace!
It has been said that our publishers of trashy literature annually make fifty million marks from the German people. This is terrible, though this estimation is still far too low. A single trashy novel which is a so-called hit can cost the people more than five or six million, and there are catalogues in which, for instance, just the single company Münchmeyer is offering fifty-eight -- read it and be amazed -- fifty-eight of these novels at the same time! You can figure it out; do the multiplications! What a loss! What an immense amount of poison and mischief! How many hundreds, or even thousands, of people are busy creating and distributing this poison! And now, open your newspapers, magazines, and books to see who is held responsible for all this, who is publicly accused, who is despised, jeered at, and slandered! Karl May, Karl May, again and again Karl May, and only and only Karl May! Where can ever another name be seen and read than just this one? Whatever have I done to be counted among the trash at all? Where are those two thousand real trashy authors, who restlessly make sure, year after year, that in Germany and in German-speaking Austria there will never be a shortage of trash? In court, in "scientific" writings, in the meetings of commissions, in public speeches by writers, editors, teachers, ministers of the church, professors, artists, psychiatrists, at all fitting and unfitting occasions where the "moral degradation of the youth" is being discussed, Karl May is mentioned again and again! He is to blame, only he! He is the archetype of those who poison the youth! He is the father of all those ruthless characters like Captain Thürmer, Nick Carter, and Buffalo Bill! My God, do these gentlemen really not know what they are doing? What a sin they are committing? How they are talked about among those who know better? Let them name just a single case where it has been really proven in court, that someone has been corrupted by one of my books! Hundreds of trashy stories of the most morally corrupting kind have been read by such a boy, and also one volume or several volumes by Karl May. This one is known, but not the others; therefore, he must be the one to be singled out and to named as the perpetrator! Week after week, newspaper offices are sending me fifty, sixty, or seventy newspaper clips, where I am being executed instead of all those German trashy authors and trashy publishers. This is inhumanly cruel! They pile up their disgrace all over me, but tip their hats to those who are really guilty. Why are their names never mentioned? Why are these not nailed to the cross? There are hundreds of publishers and writers who have been punished for distributing indecent material. And even larger is the number of those who, with the full intent, publish filth for the youth, only to make money. Why are their names not given? Why are their crimes against the youth and the people ignored to the point of becoming guilty of being an accomplice? Why are they not attacked, but only me, the scapegoat for the entire mob of literature? The answer is very simple: It is a scheme, nothing but a scheme! And it can be nothing but a scheme, because no single person could possibly commit so many wrongdoings as I am charged with! I will have to shed some light on this with more details in the next chapter.
The accusations, which are being raised against me, have always been nothing but unsubstantiated statements. Not for a single one of them, a real proof has been given. On account of these accusations, I asked countless readers of my books, in letters and in personal conversations, whether they would be able to name one of my traveller's tales or one passage from them, which might be described as having a harmful effect. No one has been able to name just a single line, to which this would apply. Even my most unrelenting opponent, the newspaper called "Kölnische Volkszeitung", has been compelled to give me the following attestation: "Everything which is offensive to the youthhas been carefully avoided,though May's works arenot at all only targeted at them; many thousands of adultshave already obtained a rich measure of recreation and information from these colourful images!" This attestation alone proves the current "scheme", because my books have remained entirely unchanged since that time, and the same gentleman who had attested this in public, was the first who has fallen victim to this scheme and has since then never been able to rise from this fall again.
To refute the allegations which are being raised against me, I feel compelled to risk committing an indiscretion by publishing the following letter, an indiscretion which this gentlemen, whom I esteem highly and honestly, will probably forgive. Doctor Peter Rosegger wrote to me on July the 2nd of this year from Krieglach.
"Dear Sir!
"The note I published in the Heimgarten is based on the judicial hearing in Charlottenburg, and as soon as, once again, a court will decide in your favour, I will, with great pleasure, take note of this.
"As a colleague, your case does concern me personally, and being your colleague, I also would like to take the liberty to give you my opinion on what would be the best manner for you to refute these allegations.
"In your place, I would ignore all the polemics which do not refer to the accusations in a factual manner. What you have confessed yourself from the time of your youth, should thereby be also taken care of, and hardly any person with a legal mind would still hold this against you, unless the court does so. That your travel accounts are not based on personal experiences, that they are just stories told in the first person, this also cannot be regarded as an objectionable act on your part by any man of literature. Thus, the only thing that is left is to finally come forward with the factual proof that those frequently mentioned obscene passages were not written by you, but edited in by the publisher. As far the plagiarisms are concerned, you have been accused of, experts ought to be able to decide to which extent these might be plagiarisms or to which extent they are only rewritten subject matters and thoughts. Based on the first editions, comparing them with the new editions, it ought to be possible to determine, whether the manner, the train of thought, and the style of the newly added sentences organically fit with your style and the book or not. I think, you should now concentrate all of your defence to such realities and push incessantly for these things to be finally decided in court. All other articles written by your friends, who are just talking in general about your works' outstanding qualities, which are by no means disputed, could not possibly have any special effect on this embarrassing affair as such.
"So, set all means in motion to arrive at a vindication in court. Should this be unsuccessful, absolute silence will be the best course of action, and should this be successful, even that part of the press which supports your presents opponents will also have to accept the court's exoneration and spread the word among the people.
"Sickness has delayed this letter. Forgive this openness, which comes from honest benevolence, and let me greet you
"yours trulyPeter Rosegger."Krieglach, 7/2/1910.
"yours truly
Peter Rosegger."
That Peter Rosegger, the distinguished, sensitive, and humanely thinking aristocrat of the mind, regards what he has mentioned concerning my youth as finished and done away with, goes without saying. Only lowly developed persons can wade through such dregs and residues. I myself have also, a long time ago, erased this chapter of my life, and thus I have to judge everyone who talks or writes about me by the same standards which I here find in Rosegger's letter. He who does not forgive, will not be forgiven either; this is the just law of heaven and of earth.
As far as the "obscenities" are concerned as well as the proof that they were not written by me, I will have to discuss this subject in the next chapter, but let me make one remark, which I deem necessary, right here and now. This is that I am not the one who has to prove that these indecent passages were not written by me, but rather they will have to prove to me that I am the author. This is just as self-evident as it is correct. No judge of our times would even consider dragging me back to the times of thumb-screws and the "Spanish maiden", when the accusor was not required to prove anything, but the accused was the one who had to prove his innocence. This simply had to be impossible in most cases. For strategic reasons in the course of a lawsuit, I have been falsely accused of having written the "Book of Love" for Münchmeyer. How can I prove that this is untrue? Let's suppose Münchmeyer's lawyer had come up with the insane idea to assert in court that Peter Rosegger had written the notorious "Temple of Venus". Would Rosegger supply the proof that this was a lie? Or would he say that the truth of this assertion would have to proven to him? I am convinced, he would do the latter. And I do so as well. I demand that my original manuscripts are brought in as evidence. There can be no other proof.
As far as the acts of plagiarism are concerned, Peter Rosegger had mentioned, the situation is like this: The Benedictine monk Father Pöllmann has written a series of articles against me and my works, starting with the threat that out of my works he would construct a figurative noose around my neck, to "whip me out of the temple of German art". Here, he has employed the right metaphor, for every one of his allegations, he afterwards cast upon me, was nothing but a snap of a whip, harsh, sharp, tough, loveless, and sadistic, therefore outraging the readers, and the echoes of its snap faded away without effect. It was also such an empty crack of a boy's whip, when he accused me of plagiarism and unsuccessfully made every effort in proving the truthfulness of his allegation. There, he talked like an ignorant man and could therefore achieve nothing but the well known effects of ignorance. The newspaper called "Grazer Tagespost" wrote about this:
"Father Pöllmann, a well known gentleman, who has just lately, with genuinely Christian humility, awarded himself the decorative cognomen of a `respected critic', has very quickly forgotten the moral defeat which he had suffered in his battle of name-calling against the travelling author Karl May, because recently he again put his foot in his mouth etc. etc."
The thing was that in some of my very first and oldest traveller's tales, which I wrote when I did not possess the necessary experience yet, I let the events I described take place before a geographical background which I took from well known, readily accessible books. This is not just allowed, it even happens quite frequently. To adapt descriptions of places for one's own needs, can never be a theft. A literary theft, plagiarism this is, is only committed when essential components of another author's mental creation are copied and then used in a manner which makes them an essential component of the plagiarist's work and thereby the impression is created that they were his own thoughts. But I have never done something like this and I also never will. Works of geography, especially when the information contained has become common knowledge, can be used without thinking of it twice, as long as no entire printed sheets or sequences of pages are copied identically and the second author's work, in spite of the copied parts, forms an independent mental achievement. In the introduction to Voigtländer's book on "Authorship and Publishing Law" it reads:
"No person creates the world of his thoughts solely by himself. He constructs it on top of what others have invented, said, and written before him or together with him. Only then at best, his very own creation begins. Even the most creative of all activities, the one of a poet, ranks highest, achieves the greatest success, when it consecrates with an artistic form those ideas, which along with the poet, are also thought and felt by his entire people. And not even the form is entirely the poet's property, because the form is supplied by the refined language, "which creates literature and thinks for you", and which has given to many a man who thinks himself to be a poet more than the form, but also thoughts or the appearance of thoughts. To put it brief, writers and artists are with their knowledge and abilities in the midst and on the top of the cultural achievements of many millennia. If Goethe had grown up on a lonely island, he would not have become Goethe. But once someone has been granted such a gifted spirit, that he has been able to advance the cultural achievements of mankind by one step, because he has been allowed to continue the ancestors' work, then it is just rightthat his work in turn shall in due time be made available for others, to use it freely, not just its contents, but also its form."
This is what the publisher of the law says, and there is no cause to dispute what he says. I, not even having committed what he explicitly permits, am thereby perfectly vindicated. Someone else wrote: "Everything is more or less plagiarism committed against achievement of culture, the mind, or the imagination. The intellectual upper class, those who possess education and culture to a higher degree, will always, more or less, feed ononereservoir which has been filled by the achievements of other, earlier, greater minds."
In issue no. 268 of the "Feder"
It is a well known fact that Maeterlinck[a]had simply copied in one of his plays
three scenes from Paul Heyse. Heyse protested; but Maeterlinck
laughed at him and just had the play published under his name. It
is just as well known that the popular song from "Der
Freischütz" entitled "Wir winden dir den Jungfernkranz"
[a]In 1908, Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949, Nobel Prize 1911) had turned to Paul Heyse (1830-1914, Nobel Prize 1910) via his German translator Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski (1873-1936) to ask for his permission to use two ideas from Heyse's play "Mary of Magdala" in his own play on the same topic in exchange for a share in the royalties. Heyse was outraged and harshly rejected this offer. Maeterlinck nevertheless used Heyse's ideas, but in a manner which did not constitute plagiarism and openly pointed this out in an appendix to the German edition of his play. Heyse complained in an article and von Oppeln-Bronikowski answered by publishing the letters which had been exchanged between them and referred to an expertise, attesting that this was not a case of plagiarism. In 1911, a letter by von Oppeln-Bronikowski was published in a magazine, denouncing Karl May's version as an audacious lie.
"Nowadays, it is very easy to be regarded as a plagiarist. An
author only has to fail to quote the source from which he has
taken one or another passage, may it be intentionally or
unintentionally. Everyone has such a dear friend, who will, after
having been so fortunate to discover the plagiarist, publicly
denounce him. Richard von Kralik has recently been accused of
plagiarism, because he was -- with out any guilt on his part --
quoted incorrectly. We want to remind those who enjoy sniffing
out plagiarism of Goethe's view on plagiarism. The subject of his
conversation with Eckermann on January the 18th, 1825, were Lord
Byron's supposed plagiarisms. See `Eckermanns Gespräche mit
Goethe'
This shall be the end of this short selection of famous names as references. What have out most famous authors done without having suffered such verbal abuse? And what have I done to be treated like the lowest of all cheaters and thieves? I have, without thinking much of it, decorated some of my small, Asian tales with entirely irrelevant geographical and ethnographical arabesques, which I found in books, which, for a long time, belong to the public. This is permissable. This is even my right. But what does Father Pöllmann say to this? He resorts to public name-calling, saying I was a"pirate in the field of literature, for all eternity the prime example of a literary thief!"Emerson, one of the most famous and most noble men of America, says: "The greatest genius is at the same time also the greatest borrower." And Goethe says: "Whatever is there, this is mine. Whether I have taken it from real life or from a book, this is all the same!" How would Father Pöllmann have to pass an analogous judgement on these two champions? To him, they would have to be "for all eternity, the worst among all literary fiends", exuding the stench of greedy rapacity and moral corruption! A criticism which is thus ignorant, thus inexperienced, thus self-promoting, and thus exceeding all limits, as this one, constitutes a danger not just to literature, but also to the entire people.
I have written my "traveller's tales" just the way I had originally planed to write them for the human soul, for the soul, and only for the soul. And only the soul alone, for which they have been written, shall read them, for it alone can understand and comprehend me. I do not pick up my pen for soulless readers. An exemplary author, writing exemplary stories for exemplary readers is not what I am or I ever would want to be or become. Once we will have reached this point that there are only exemplary authors, exemplary readers, and exemplary books, this will be the end! I am so bold to assert that we must not use the existing exemplary books, but rather the existing trash as examples, to model our own books after, if we wish to achieve what the true friends of the people seek to achieve. Let us not write like the boring ones, which are not read, let us rather write like the trashy authors, who know how to win a hundred thousands and millions of subscribers! But our topics shall be noble, as noble as our purposes and goals. Write for the great soul! Do not write for the tiny spirits, on whom your efforts will be waisted and dispersed, without them ever being grateful to you. Because however much effort you put into seeking their applause, they will still maintain that they were able to do it better, though they are not capable of anything at all! And do not write anything small, at least nothing earthly small. But rather raise your eyes up to how everything fits together on the big scale. Small things might also be found there, but behind and in these small things, the truly great thing live. And even if you should commit mistakes in the process, mistakes as many and as big as the ones Karl May has made, this will do no harm. It is better to occasionally stumble on the path which leads upwards and to finally reach the top regardless, than not to stumble on the path which leads downwards and to succumb to the depth. Or even to run round and round one's own equator, holding one's head up high and taking proud steps, always returning to oneself again and again, without having climbed over any higher ground. For mountains are what we must have, ideals, highly situated intermediate stops and final goals.
Perhaps, I have just too many ideals and goals and am therefore running the risk not to achieve a single one of them; but I do not fear that this might be so. I have already said what I want and what goals I am seeking; I do not need to repeat it. And I have already had to overcome so many steep heights, that I cannot possibly regard myself as one of those poor devils who never leave the plane of their own equator. There are some people who recommend my style as an example for others; there are different people who say that I had no style; and thirdly, there are people who maintain that did have a style, but that it was an extraordinarily bad one. The truth is that I do not pay any attention to my style at all. I write whatever comes from my soul, and I write it the way I hear it inside of me. I never change anything, and never improve anything. Thus, my style is my soul, and not my "style", but my soul shall talk to the readers. I also do not employ any so-called artistic form. My literary garments have not been cut to size, sewn, or even ironed by any tailor. It is natural cloth. I wrap myself in it, drape it as I need it or according to the mood I am in when I write. Therefore, what I write has such a direct effect and not an effect which would be achieved by pretty outward appearances, which possess no internal value. I do not want to capture the reader, not grasp him externally, but rather I want to enter in his inner self, I want to access his soul, his heart, his emotions. There I will stay, for there I can and may stay, because I neither come with distracting forms nor distracting garments and am just the way the soul wants me to be. That this is the right thing, decades of beautiful experiences have confirmed to me. I must, can, and may take the liberty of displaying this honest and natural quality, because solely by these means, I am able to effectuate what I want to achieve, because I do not ask my readers to conform to a different or even higher artistic standard than I ask from myself, and because the time has not come, yet, when I will have to give my work also an external form, which is on an aesthetically higher level. Now, I still make my sketches, and sketches are commonly accepted as they are.
In my entire work, not including the humorous short stories and village-tales from the Ore Mountains, there is not a single character which was fully developed and perfected by me, not even Winnetou and Hadji Halef Omar, those two about whom I have written more than about any other characters. After all, I am not finished with my own development yet, I am still changing. Inside of me, everything is still moving ahead, and of the characters within me, all of my topics are moving along with me. I know my goal; but until I will have reached it, I am still travelling, and all of my thoughts are still travelling. Naturally, none of our poets and artists, and mainly none of our great classics, have postponed their work, until they have grown mentally mature enough, but I am to be regarded as an outsider in this respect as well, am even described by many as an outlaw or outcast, and therefore, I may not even by a long shot take those liberties which others take for granted. What is regarded as the most natural thing in the world with others, is in me either regarded as bad or ridiculous, and things which are accepted as an excuse, a reason for forgiveness, for others are being ignored in my case. One single time, I have intended to write something of artistic value, my "Babel and Bible". What was the consequence? It has been described as a "miserable fabrication", and so much mockery and sneering has been heaped up on it, as if it had been written by a harlequin or an ape. Such an experience makes a person stand back and await his time. And this time will come for sure. Literary buffoons can very well be swept off the scene, but spiritual movements cannot be suppressed, for they are invincible. I would not think of making accusations, since nothing would come out of it, anyhow. Nevertheless, I must not fail to give one example to illustrate the fact I touched upon here, one single example which says it all thus clearly that I can easily forgo all other evidence. This example concerns an organisation, which has been founded for the purpose of establishing libraries for the people and making books more readily available, and which has distributed, until now, several thousands of my volumes each year. Suddenly, they stopped this, and being asked about it, the central office of this organisation issued the following statement, which had been published by several newspapers: "On our part, we do refrain from the further distribution of May's writings and no longer offer these books through our catalogues, but we do not intent to express by this that the contents of May's traveller's tales would be objectionable, and we also to not ask the boards of our organisations to go through the trouble of removing these books from the libraries for that matter. Our current disapproving position is not directed against thewritings,but against thepersonageof the author.Thus, you can continue to allow these volumes to be checked out without any need for concern."This is surely enough! My books are beyond reproach; but I as a person am publicly condemned! Why? Due to this "scheme" I already talk about earlier. Therefore, do not think that the "Karl-May-persecution" or, to put it a bit more decently, the "Karl-May-problem" was a matter of literature. Here are, by no means, literary or even ethical reasons at play, but it is, to call it by its proper name, a solely personal butchering for the morally lowest reasons pertaining to my lawsuits. What they say in this context about moral and journalistic necessities is nothing but a bombastic show, to conceal the truth. If someone would want to write a novel about this, this could become the most sensational one of all colportage novels, and the main characters would be the following: The former chief editor Dr. Hermann Cardauns in Bonn, the former colporteuse Pauline Münchmeyer in Dresden, the Franciscan monk Dr. Expeditus Schmidt in Munich, the former social democrat Rudolf Lebius in Charlottenburg, who has seceded from the Christian church, the Benedictine Father Ansgar Pöllmann in Beuron, and the lawyer of the colporteuse Münchmeyer, Dr. Gerlach in Niederlößnitz near Dresden. This novel would be most important for the purpose of shedding some light on the present legislation and would also cast surprising side-lights on other conditions, conditions of society, business, and the psyche. There, we would get to see much filth, very much filth, which is anything but tasteful, and thus, I want, since I have to mention and demonstrate this filth here as well, to try my best to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Jørgensen[a], whom my readers will probably know, says in his parable "The Shadow" to the poet: "You do not know what you are doing, when you are sitting and writing here and your soul is filled by the power of the wine and the night. You do not know how many people's fate is reshaped, created, changed by a single line of yours on the white paper. You do not know how many a human joy you are killing, how many a death sentence you are signing, here, in your quiet solitude, by the peaceful lamp, between the flowery glasses and the bottle of burgundy. Consider,that we others act out what you poets write.We are as you have shaped us. The youth of this realm repeats your creation like shadows. We are as chaste as you are; we are as immoral as you want us to be. The young men believe according to your belief in or denial of any faith. The young girls are as decent or frivolous as the women are your glorify."