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Peter Schlemihl:
The Man Who Sold His Shadow
Alun Ward
"Chamisso neatly ties into my interests in figure and shadow,
with the Shadow Me project, and future
plans for a project on ice. View a short animated gif movie
here. Adalbert von Chamisso (1781 - 1840) was the author of Peter
Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte, 1814, or The Man Who Sold His
Shadow, a popular children's tale even today. A year later he travelled
as naturalist on the Rurik Expedition to discover a north-east passage
in the Bering Straits.
I resolved to let my crew rest themselves for
to-day, to be able to undertake an examination of the strait or bay,
on the morrow, with fresh strength; and while preparations were making
to this effect, we took an excursion to the island, which I called
after our naturalist, Chamisso.
Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Beering's
[sic] Straits for the purpose of exploring a North-East passage, undertaken
in the years 1815-18, London, 1821
The bay Kotzebue discovered, where Chamisso Island lies, was then strewn
with icebergs, and they later voyaged on to Hawaii, the land of volcanoes.
Map of Chamisso Island, Kotzebue Bay, Alaska, taken from the Journal
of the Voyages. The island was discovered by Adalbert von Chamisso,
1816 during the voyage of the Rurik to discover a north-east passage
Expedia
map for Kotzebue Bay today
Map by
www.expediamaps.com
Chamisso also fits into my current interest in nineteenth century France
and Germany. His tale of the shadow can be read as a reflection of his
own feelings of dislocation and homelessness as a Frenchman by birth
living on German soil. He was a poet of the Romantic movement who spent
his life as a naturalist in the pursuit of truth in science.
links:
Hermann Goldschmidt also crossed
the boundaries between art and science, and the boundaries between nations,
as a German living in Paris for most of his life.
Paul
Wegener made a movie of Schlemihl in 1915, but I can find no
trace of it yet. Anyone who knows anything about it, contact
me.
You can read the story of Schlemihl in German here.
Shadow literature - lots of it, start at a Pascal
Mamassian's bibliography.
Robert
Casati's web site is devoted to the shadow.
Please feel free to mail me with
any information you have about Chamisso.
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