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The name of the Neapolitan Giambattista Basile (1575-1632) is not anchored in Germany's collective memory, in contrast to the names and works of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1785-1863 and 1786-1859 respectively), Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827), Ludwig Bechstein (1801-1860), or- for the Baroque period - Johann Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (16221676). That is to say, the name Basile means absolutely nothing to the average German, nor does the title of his Pentamerone mean anything to more educated readers. Given the small number of German-language printings of Basile's work, this is not surprising: Felix Liebrecht's (1812-1890) complete translation, Der Pentamerone oder Das Märchen aller Märchen (The Pentamerone, or the Tale of Tales) only appeared in Breslau in 1846. ' In 1909, two generations later, the same translation appeared in a bibliophilie edition in Munich as Das Märchen aller Märchen oder das Pentameron (The Tale of Tales, or the Pentamerone), with illustrations by Franz von Bayros, and once again in Vienna in 1928 as Das Pentameron. Die Geschichte aller Geschichten (The Pentamerone. The Story of All Stories) in the series, Masterworks of Erotic Literature. Only after the Second World War were there new editions and reprints.
Basile's influence on German literature and narrative tradition was thus not direct, but only indirect. Before Christoph Martin Wieland (1733-1813) published Basile's tale "Pervonte" in 1778/79 in his distinguished journal, Der Teutsche Merkur, Basile's collection was for all intents and purposes completely unknown. On the other hand, in the previous year two dramatic works, Die Liebe zu den drey Pomeranzen (The Love for Three Oranges) and Der Rabe (The Raven), originally composed by Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) and based on Basile tales, appeared in a translation by Friedrich August Clemens Werthes (1748-1817).2 Werthes' translations of Gozzi's works, however, predated German appreciation for Basilean stories. A real - and enthusiastic - reception came only with the Romantics. Chief among them were Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), who himself composed Der gestiefelte Kater, a "Puss in Boots" tale, and brought it to the stage, and Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822), who once said of the "glorious" Gozzi, "In his dramatic tales he fulfilled exactly what I require of an opera composer, and it is incomprehensible that this rich source of splendid subjects for opera has remained unused to...