Wildness and revolution in Joseph von Eichendorff's "Das Schloss Durande"

Abstract

Baron von Eichendorff’s story “Das Schloß Dürande” concerns the French Revolution. The author could be expected to give a rather partisan view of the subject, being a German nationalist, a member of an old aristocratic family, a zealous Catholic, a veteran of two wars against Napoleon in which he took part as a volunteer, and, perhaps needless to add, a conservative. We might with reason expect that “Das Schloß Dürande” will turn out a piece of rather crude anti-revolutionary, or maybe even anti-French, propaganda, but this does not seem to be the case, although the work in question is indeed, beyond reasonable doubt, antirevolutionary.