Apollo has fled the wretchedness of German literature for the land of Utopia. Mercury relates how German poets have turned the Parnassus into a brothel and reminds Apollo of his responsibilities. They go to the Parnassus and find that Minerva has been raped and is on the verge of hanging herself. Then, Apollo dispenses justice and punishes muses and the members of their cult: he transforms them into pigs, donkeys, dung beetles, spittoons and dustbins, and serves the rest up to journalists. Once their work is complete, they will be hung by their feet.

Not specified

Schink Johann Friedrich

Germany

Berlin

Printed

Greek mythology

Gods

Poetry

Wonderland

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Gottfried August Bürger

Popular literature

Sturm und Drang

Preromantic

Triviality

Scatology

Rousseauism

Germanic mythology

Philosophy

Stench

Satirical

Burlesque

Engraving from the original publication of Marionettentheater (1778)

German

Apoll

Eine dramatsche Fantasei

Fantaisie

Apollo

Mercury

Minerva

Muse

Grâce

Prologue

Allegory

Song

Allusion to current literary events

Hanging scene

Chorus

Sung scenes

Versified passages

Foul language register

Parodic trial

Defecation on stage

Metamorphosis

Epilogue

Der Staupbesen

The Broom

Hanswurst is thrown out like trash from the stage of the Berlin theatre following the success of Voltaire’s tragedy Alzire. He is exiled to Salzbourg, where he lodges at Stoffel Knips’ house and seduces his host’s wife. Stoffel Knips catches them in the act and throws them out. Hanswurst’s distress is such that he tries to kill himself. But thunder strikes the branch on which he was hanging. Two Turks pass by the unconscious couple and take them aboard their felucca going to Turkey. During the trip, Madame Knips gives birth to two children – a boy and a girl – who grow extremely fast. In Turkey, Hanswurst is castrated to be made a eunuch in the Sultan’s seraglio. Madame Knips fell in the sea with her son during the trip, but she manages to swim to shore. She competes with her daughter for the Sultan’s favours; Hanswurst takes offence and makes a scene. He is banished by the Sultan as a result, and returns to Berlin, where he meets a prostitute. He recognizes one of the brothel’s clients as his own son, who also escaped drowning and became a pedant professor of philosophy. During a lecture he gives on the German almanac Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, published by Friedrich Christoph Nicolai, all the characters on stage die from atrocious diarrhoea.

Turkey

Sultan

Seraglio

Unfaithfulness

Prostitution

Suicide

Education

Literary criticism

Genie

Adventure

Navigation

Human castration

Mutilation

Childbirth

Storm

Tempest

Colic

Fart

Fornication

Obscenity

Anonymous illustration on the title page of Johann Friedrich Schink's collection Marionettentheater