| Peter Schlemihl | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Adelbert von Chamisso |
| Original title | Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte |
| Translator | Leopold von Loewenstein-Wertheim |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publication date | 1814 |
| ISBN | 978-1-84749-080-3 |
| OCLC Number | 246906885 |
Peter Schlemihl is the title character of an 1814 novel, Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story),[1] written in German by exiled French aristocrat Adelbert von Chamisso. In the story, Schlemihl sells his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet, only to find that a man without a shadow is shunned by human society. The woman he loves rejects him, and he spends the rest of his life wandering the world in scientific exploration.
The Yiddish word Schlemiel—and its Hebrew cognate Shlumi'el—mean a hopelessly incompetent person, a bungler. Consequently, the name is a synonym of one who makes a desperate or silly bargain.
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The story, intended for children, was widely read and the character became a common cultural reference in many countries. People generally remembered the element of the shadow better than how the story ended, simplifying Chamisso's lesson to "don't sell your shadow to the Devil."
In Hans Christian Andersen's 1847 fairy tale The Shadow, the main character loses his shadow on a journey, and is afraid of being taken as an imitator if he tells his story.
The story is alluded to in Karl Marx's 1851 essay, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon".
Ernest Gellner in Nations and Nationalism uses Chamisso's story as a metaphor of a man wthout a shadow.
In the third act of Jacques Offenbach's 1881 opera, The Tales of Hoffmann, the character Peter Schlémil has also given up his shadow.
The story is referred to by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations (Section 339), published posthumously in 1953.
The story was performed on American television, in a 1953 episode of Favorite Story, starring DeForest Kelley as the title character.[2]
In Robertson Davies' 1972 novel The Manticore, the story is referred to by the character Dr. Von Haller, in a discussion about the significance of losing one's shadow.
In the title of the first chapter of Thomas Pynchon's novel, V., the character Benny Profane is referred to as a "schlemihl and human yo-yo."
Oscar Wilde's "The Fisherman and his Soul" demonstrates a familiarity with the story. In the Wilde story, however, the fisherman does not sell his soul, but cuts it from him with a magic knife and leaves it to wander the world.
The character Peter Schlemihl is referenced by Imre Kertész in his 2003 novel Liquidation (Felszámolás).
Georges Schwizgebel's 2004 paint-on-glass animation L'Homme sans ombre (The Man With No Shadow) portrays a slight variation on the original story: after being rejected by his lover and society, the main character returns to the devil. Rather than getting back his shadow, he trades his riches for a pair of Seven-league boots and travels the world in search of a place where he will be accepted without a shadow. In the end, he becomes a Wayang shadow puppeteer in Indonesia because he can manipulate the puppets directly without affecting their silhouettes.[3]
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.