A VILLAGE ROMEO AND JULIET (Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorf)
by Gottfried Keller, 1856

The title of Gottfried Keller's story "A Village Romeo and Juliet" ("Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorf") prepares the reader for warring families, frustrated love, and tragic death, but his addition of the word "village" signals a particular reworking of the Shakespearean tale. This is, in fact, a paupers' love tragedy that was initially inspired not by Shakespeare but by a newspaper report. Consequently, it places less emphasis on passion and familial enmity than on the social and psychological pressures that prevent a destitute couple from marrying. The story, which first appeared in 1856, has justifiably become the most famous of Keller's most popular collection of short stories, The People of Seldwyla (Die Leute von Seldwyla).

The third-person narrative has four broad sections. The first depicts a day in the life of two hardworking farmers and the carefree play of their children. It also introduces the plot of land that separates their fields, the covetous attitude both have toward it, and the fact that its rightful owner cannot prove his claim. The second section, which condenses 12 years, sketches the way in which the farmers fall out over the land and portrays the ensuing humiliations and impoverishment to which they are reduced by futile litigation. During the physical fight they finally succumb to, their children discover their love for each other. The third section covers a day and a night and reveals the increasingly hopeless love of the young people, whose prospects are diminished even further when the boy throws a stone at the girl's father, an act that leads to the latter's dementia and eventual institutionalization. The fourth section describes the final day and night the couple spend together before they commit suicide by drowning. This section is by far the longest, encompassing almost half of the story.

Keller expressed satisfaction with the "simplicity and clarity" he felt he had achieved, and indeed there are few characters, a simple strand to the plot, and no complexities of time scale. The sentences are sometimes long, but they are never complex, and the language employed is also undemanding. There is a surprising amount of dialogue and, more typically for Keller, an abundance of adjectives. Throughout the tale the author focuses on key scenes, which are described in considerable detail. Such detail is heavy at times and sometimes gratuitous, but in this story, in contrast to many of his others, Keller does succeed in using description and apparent digression to bring out aspects of psychology and to adumbrate developments.

Keller takes pains to emphasize the sociological dimension to his plot. The barriers preventing a successful union of his lovers are not, as in Shakespeare, simply the opposition of the parents. The families concerned are humble, but when the tale commences, they are financially stable and proud. Their descent into poverty is demoralizing and is experienced keenly by the two children, who are very much a product of their environment, highly sensitive to changes in social standing and to moral codes, and ashamed of the behavior of their fathers.

In contrast to their Shakespearean forebears, Keller's young couple are offered a way out of their dilemma. Although they have no hope of marrying and settling down in the bourgeois security they both long for, they are presented with an alternative way of life. The Black Fiddler, the rightful owner of the land that has sparked the catastrophe, encourages them to escape with him and his band for a life in the woods, where they can live a free, bohemian style of existence. Although initially seduced by this slightly demonic figure of temptation and the bacchic revelry in which they become involved, the lovers recognize that they will not be able to forget their former way of life. Keller shows that they are too keenly aware of their ingrained sense of respectability and morality. They also are disturbed by the thought that such a life might lead to infidelity, which neither wishes to contemplate. Although they maintain their sense of moral values, the pair are so aroused by the Black Fiddler's music and wine and by the mock marriage ceremony he has acted out for them that they cannot resist a night of sexual union. But it is immediately followed by suicide.

Much of the suggestive power of the story is contained in symbols such as the fateful plot of land, the Black Fiddler, certain colors—notably red and black—and aspects of the natural world like flowers and stones. These are interrelated, and they are also connected with the moral implications of the story, in particular with the tragic consequences of greed and selfishness among the petite bourgeoisie.

The story is sometimes considered a prime example of German poetic realism, a loose term that refers to a period in the mid-nineteenth century when writers, particularly of short prose, were tending toward a "filtering" of the world, a selective, imaginative approach to reality that avoided the vulgar and the political and preferred nature as a background. Keller certainly idealizes parts of the world he presents. The goodness, beauty, and purity of his young lovers are beyond normal experience, and there are various idyllic touches. But the author does not overlook the misfits, failures, and socially underprivileged in the society he depicts, and the shifting tone adopted by the narrator suggests an unease with the world he is portraying. This is clearest in the final sentences of the story, which contain the severely moralizing—and totally inappropriate—response of the local press to the tragedy.

—Peter Hutchinson