The Black Spider
The Black Spider is a novella by the Swiss writer Jeremias Gotthelf written in 1842. Set in an idyllic frame story, old legends are worked into a Christian-humanist allegory about ideas of good and evil. Though the novel is initially divided, what is originally the internal story, later spills over into the frame story as well. The story is characterized by its complex narrative structure, its conservative Christian motifs and symbolism, and its precise descriptions of the social dynamics of the village.
Plot
The novella begins with a christening party at a farm, during the course of which a few of the guests in front of the house go for a walk. It catches the godmother's eye that although the house is newly built, an old, black post is built in. At her inquiry, the grandfather tells the story of the post.
First internal narrative
The grandfather tells how a few centuries before, the village had been ruled by the Teutonic Knight Hans von Stoffeln, who worked the farmers of the village very hard. Von Stoffeln, a hard and aggressive man, relentlessly collected on the tax obligations of his serfs. His unpredictability inspired fear among the peasants, and he would brook no contradiction; any criticism of him inspired such harsh retaliation that the farmers submitted weakly to his will. Von Stoffeln demanded ever more ludicrous tasks, the last of which was the replanting of trees from a distant mountain to form a shaded path on his estate. He demanded this job be done in such a short period that the peasants could not possibly do it without forgoing their own harvest and going hungry.
The Black Spider (film)
The Black Spider (German:Die schwarze Spinne) is a 1921 German silent horror film directed by Siegfried Philippi and starring Olga Engl, Hugo Flink and Charles Willy Kayser. It premiered in Berlin on 8 August 1921.
Cast
References
Bibliography
External links
The Black Spider (opera)
The Black Spider is an opera in three acts by Judith Weir with a libretto by the composer. The work is loosely based on the 1842 novella Die schwarze Spinne by Jeremias Gotthelf.
Norman Platt, director of Kent Opera, described how his finance director Robin Jessel lent him a recording of King Harald's Saga by Weir; Platt was much impressed by its originality and having listened to more of her music, met with her, and commissioned a young people's opera with funds from the Arts Council.
The work was first performed in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral on 6 March 1985, with tenor Armistead Wilkinson and children of the Frank Hooker School; it lasts around one hour and a quarter.
Weir describes the opera's tone as “somewhere between a video nasty and an Ealing comedy”.
Synopsis
The opera exploits the collision of two plots and switches back and forth between a Polish legend of the Middle Ages and a contemporary newspaper cutting about a curse on the opening of a tomb in Cracow Cathedral.
Podcasts:
