When I am talking about my literary work here, I am referring to
those books the critics have been or still are devoting their
attention to. Those books the critics have ignored, no matter
whether it happened intentionally or unintentionally, may also be
skipped here. Among these are my humorous short stories, my
village-tales from the Ore Mountains, and a few other things which
still lie hidden in the newspapers, without being collected in
books. I could also list my "Thoughts of Heaven" among those,
since no critic seems to dare to touch them since Mr. Hermann
Cardauns happened to cause such a wondrous embarrassment for
himself by them. As we all know, he wrote: "But as a lyrical
poet, we have to say `no' to him", though the entire collection
does not contain a single lyrical poem! I also do not have to
discuss my so-called "Union or Spemann"-volumes [a] here, because
they have not been attacked anywhere, though I am only attacked in
my capacity as an author for young people, and these are the only
things I have written for the young generation. So, I will only
deal with the "traveller's tales", published by Fehsenfeld, and
the "trashy novels", which had been published by Münchmeyer; the
latter I will discuss in the next chapter.
[a] This refers to a series of stories which were first published
in a magazine for boys, published by Wilhelm Spemann, and
were later collected in several books, which were published
by a company called "Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft".
As mentioned before, my "traveller's tales" have to rise among the
Arabs from the desert up to the Jebel Marah Durimeh and among the
American Indians from the jungle and the prairie up to the Mount
Winnetou. On this path, the reader shall develop from a low
anima-person up to the realization of what it means to be a nobly
spirited person. At the same time, he shall experience how the
anima transforms on this path into a soul and a mind. Therefore,
these tales start in the first volume in the "desert". In the
desert, i.e. in the nothingness, in complete ignorance about
everything which concerns the anima, the soul, and the mind.
Stepping out into the desert and opening his eyes, the first thing
my Kara Ben Nemsi, the first person narrator, the "self",
mankind's great question, gets to see is a strange, little fellow,
who is riding towards him on a large horse, has invented a long,
famous name for himself, and even maintains that he was a Hadji,
though he finally has to admit that he has never been to one of
the holy cities of Islam, where the honourable title of a Hadji is
obtained. You see, that I am dressing up a genuinely German, and
therefore domestic, psychological riddle into a foreign, oriental
garment, to make it more interesting and to be able to solve it in
a more understandable manner. This is what I mean when I maintain
that all of these traveller's tales have to be interpreted as
parables, i.e. figuratively or symbolically. There is no
mysticism or anything similar involved. My symbols are so clear,
so transparent, that nothing mystical can hide behind them at all.
This Hadji, who calls himself Hadji Halef Omar and adds even his
father and grandfathers' names with the title Hadji to his own,
symbolises the human anima, which pretends to be the soul or even
the mind, without even knowing what a soul or a mind really is.
This is a daily occurrence among us, not just in ordinary life,
but also among learned people, but there such a blindness towards
this mistake that I have to resort to Arabian characters and
Arabian conditions to let the blind eyes see. Therefore, I send
this Halef to Mecca in one of the very first chapters, which
transforms his lie into the truth, because he is now really a
Hadji, and then, immediately afterwards, I let him get acquainted
with his "soul" - - - Hannah [a], his wife!
[a] This is a misspelling in the original text. The character
is actually called Hanneh.
I hope that this example, which I take from my very first volume,
says clearly what I want and how my books have to be read, to get
to know their real contents. Let me follow it up with a second
example: Kara Ben Nemsi is with the Persian tribe of the Jamikun.
This tribe is to be destroyed by the people of the Sillan. Then,
the ustad, the leader of the Jamikun, sends a messenger to the
shah, to ask him for help. This messenger has not even reached
the shah yet, when he meets with the shah's hosts, who are telling
him that they have been sent by the shah to help the Jamikun.
Thus, the shah had granted the ustad's request, even before it has
reached him. But the shah represents God, and thus, I interpret
by this tale the Christian teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:8:
"Your father knows what you require, before you ask him!"
Furthermore, the ustad is nobody else but Karl May, and the people
of Jamikun are his readers, which are to be destroyed by the
Sillan. So, I am telling purely German events in a Persian
disguise and render them by these means understandable for friends
and enemies alike. Is this not a parable? Not symbolic? It
certainly is! And could it be mystic? Not in the very least! It
is so obviously a parable and so little mystic that, to be honest,
everybody who would deny the former and suppose the latter would
seem to me like a person who would deserve a name which I do not
want to mention. Whoever does not go about reading my books with
unconditionally hostile intentions and is honestly willing will,
without much of an effort, find that their contents consist of
almost nothing but parables. And to him who has once reached this
realization, the numerous fables of heaven will quite surely not
remain unnoticed, which are strewn all over these parables and
which have to form the actual, deepest contents of my traveller's
tales. These fables are also the material out of which I will
have to develop my real life-work in the end of my final days.
After all, even my very first character, Hadji Halef Omar, is
already a fable, the fable of the lost human soul, which can never
be found again, unless it finds itself. And this Hadji is my own
anima; yes, he is the anima of Karl May! By describing all the
flaws of this Hadji, I disclose my own faults, and thereby, I make
a confession the likes of which was probably never made before
thus comprehensively and thus honestly by any author. I may very
well maintain that I do not deserve in the least certain
allegations which are being made by my opponents. If, for a
change, these opponents would dare to talk thus openly about
themselves as I talk about myself, then this so-called
Karl-May-problem would have reached that state a long time ago,
which it eventually has to reach, whether they like it or not.
For this Karl-May-problem is also a parable. It is nothing else
but that great, general problem of mankind, which countless
millions have already endeavoured to solve, without achieving any
tangible result. Just the same, they have already, for several
decades, endeavoured to work on me, without producing more than
this pathetic caricature as which I live in the brains and the
writings of those who feel called upon to solve problems, but
always do this just there where there are none.
Let me furthermore name the fable of "Marah Durimeh", the soul of
mankind, the fable of "Shakara", that noble soul of a woman, sent
by God, this woman whom I have described with the features of my
present wife. And then there are the fables of the "redeemed
devil", the "immured God", the "petrified prayer", the "calcified
souls", the "Beit-Ullah's columns of roses", the "jump into the
past", the "jemma of the living and the dead", the "battle at the
Jebel Allah", the "Lake Mahalama", the "mountain of the royal
tombs", the "mir of Jinnistan", the "mir of Ardistan", the "city
of the deceased", the "Jebel Muchallis", the "watershed of El
Hadd", and many, many more. Considering these mentally and
spiritually so significant, yes even hard, contents of my novels,
it would be incomprehensible how they could be described as
"literature for young people" and I as an "author for young
people", if we would not know that all who commit this mistake
have either not understood them or have not read them at all.
Even "Winnetou", which seems to be so easy to read, requires, when
it approaches its end in the fourth volume, a reflection and
understanding, which would surely be asking too much from a
seventh-grader or a teenaged girl! When some people nevertheless
continue using these expressions "literature for young people" and
"author for young people", I have to describe this as an
intentional misrepresentation, which is beneath every decent and
serious critic.
But once the admission is made, honestly and according to the
truth, that my "traveller's tales" have not been written for the
young generation, the foundation of the nowadays commonplace
supposition that they were harmful has been removed. Let them
only be read by those to whom they are not harmful; I would not
force anybody else to do so! What is the reason and purpose of
all these allegations, I am now confronted with in hundreds of
newspapers? As soon as one takes a closer look at these
allegations, they lose all of their worth. I used to be praised;
now, I am disapproved of. This has become the current fashion and
will, like every fashion, turn into its opposite again. But this
fashion is not just a fashion, but a scheme! Even if now my books
were no longer read by anybody, this could not worry me in the
least, for I know that this scheme will be found out very soon,
resulting in the appropriate reaction. Moreover, if had fed my
readers with nothing but entertainment, I would have to disappear
from the scene, never to reappear again, and would be
understanding enough, without having to be told so, to submit to
this fate. But _during_my_"life_and_my_efforts"_I_have_committed_
_mistakes,_which_were_just_too_many_and_just_too_severe,_for_me_
_to_be_allowed_to_perish_and_to_disappear_forever_just_like_that._
_I_have_to_undo_the_damage!_ Whatever a mortal has sinned, he has
to repent and atone for, and blessed is he who is granted an
opportunity by heaven not to take his guilt with him beyond death,
but to pay already for it here. I want to do this; I may do
this, and I will do this! Moreover, I boldly state: I have
already done this! I have already given to the law of man
everything it had a right to demand from me a long time ago; I do
not owe it anything any more! And what extends beyond those
articles of the law created by man, I will settle by dedicating
all that I am still going to write to this great creditor, who
knows very well, whether I owe more than those others who think
themselves better than May.
I am convinced that my sins, as far as I am to blame for them, are
only in the area of my personal life, but not in my literature;
in the latter area, I not conscious of any misdeeds. What I have
achieved through my "traveller's tales", will be revealed only
after my death by the thousands of letters I have received, but
even then, only my biographer will get to see them; they will not
be published. These works used to be praised and adored, until
one day, a certain unscrupulous person had nothing better to do
than to state in public that I had also written other things aside
from them, but that those were "abysmally" indecent. Even if this
had been true, it could not have changed the "traveller's tales",
neither their inner contents nor their external form.
Nevertheless, from this day on, they were first regarded with
suspicion, then they were slandered more and more, and finally
they were even declared to be perfectly harmful and were expelled
from the libraries, where they used to be welcomed before. Why?
Had they changed? No! Had the bibliographical customs, the laws
of morality changed? No! Had the needs of the readers become
different? This is not it either! But what other reason was
there? This was simply because of this circle of people from the
realm of trashy literature and colportage, who were determined to,
as they themselves used to put it, "destroy me". But is it
humanly possible that such a circle of people could gain such an
extensive and incomprehensible influence on the world literature
and its critics? Unfortunately yes! I will have to write about
this in the next chapter. This mob does not even stop at casting
their own sins and literary crimes upon me and at presenting
themselves as spotless! There are so-called critics which have
been staining my reputation for as long as ten years with all
kinds of slander on account of the novels I wrote for Münchmeyer,
but have not blamed the publisher a single time in even the
slightest extent. I call this a disgrace!
It has been said that our publishers of trashy literature annually
make fifty million marks from the German people. This is
terrible, though this estimation is still far too low. A single
trashy novel which is a so-called hit can cost the people more
than five or six million, and there are catalogues in which, for
instance, just the single company Münchmeyer is offering
fifty-eight - read it and be amazed - fifty-eight of these novels
at the same time! You can figure it out; do the multiplications!
What a loss! What an immense amount of poison and mischief! How
many hundreds, or even thousands, of people are busy creating and
distributing this poison! And now, open your newspapers,
magazines, and books to see who is held responsible for all this,
who is publicly accused, who is despised, jeered at, and
slandered! Karl May, Karl May, again and again Karl May, and only
and only Karl May! Where can ever another name be seen and read
than just this one? Whatever have I done to be counted among the
trash at all? Where are those two thousand real trashy authors,
who restlessly make sure, year after year, that in Germany and in
German-speaking Austria there will never be a shortage of trash?
In court, in "scientific" writings, in the meetings of
commissions, in public speeches by writers, editors, teachers,
ministers of the church, professors, artists, psychiatrists, at
all fitting and unfitting occasions where the "moral degradation
of the youth" is being discussed, Karl May is mentioned again and
again! He is to blame, only he! He is the archetype of those who
poison the youth! He is the father of all those ruthless
characters like Captain Thürmer, Nick Carter, and Buffalo Bill!
My God, do these gentlemen really not know what they are doing?
What a sin they are committing? How they are talked about among
those who know better? Let them name just a single case where it
has been really proven in court, that someone has been corrupted
by one of my books! Hundreds of trashy stories of the most
morally corrupting kind have been read by such a boy, and also one
volume or several volumes by Karl May. This one is known, but not
the others; therefore, he must be the one to be singled out and
to named as the perpetrator! Week after week, newspaper offices
are sending me fifty, sixty, or seventy newspaper clips, where I
am being executed instead of all those German trashy authors and
trashy publishers. This is inhumanly cruel! They pile up their
disgrace all over me, but tip their hats to those who are really
guilty. Why are their names never mentioned? Why are these not
nailed to the cross? There are hundreds of publishers and writers
who have been punished for distributing indecent material. And
even larger is the number of those who, with the full intent,
publish filth for the youth, only to make money. Why are their
names not given? Why are their crimes against the youth and the
people ignored to the point of becoming guilty of being an
accomplice? Why are they not attacked, but only me, the scapegoat
for the entire mob of literature? The answer is very simple: It
is a scheme, nothing but a scheme! And it can be nothing but a
scheme, because no single person could possibly commit so many
wrongdoings as I am charged with! I will have to shed some light
on this with more details in the next chapter.
The accusations, which are being raised against me, have always
been nothing but unsubstantiated statements. Not for a single one
of them, a real proof has been given. On account of these
accusations, I asked countless readers of my books, in letters and
in personal conversations, whether they would be able to name one
of my traveller's tales or one passage from them, which might be
described as having a harmful effect. No one has been able to
name just a single line, to which this would apply. Even my most
unrelenting opponent, the newspaper called "Kölnische
Volkszeitung", has been compelled to give me the following
attestation: "Everything which is offensive to the youth _has_
_been_carefully_avoided,_ though May's works are _not_at_all_only_
_targeted_at_them;_many_thousands_of_adults_ have already obtained
a rich measure of recreation and information from these colourful
images!" This attestation alone proves the current "scheme",
because my books have remained entirely unchanged since that time,
and the same gentleman who had attested this in public, was the
first who has fallen victim to this scheme and has since then
never been able to rise from this fall again.
To refute the allegations which are being raised against me, I
feel compelled to risk committing an indiscretion by publishing
the following letter, an indiscretion which this gentlemen, whom I
esteem highly and honestly, will probably forgive. Doctor Peter
Rosegger wrote to me on July the 2nd of this year from Krieglach.
"Dear Sir!
"The note I published in the Heimgarten is based on the judicial
hearing in Charlottenburg, and as soon as, once again, a court
will decide in your favour, I will, with great pleasure, take note
of this.
"As a colleague, your case does concern me personally, and being
your colleague, I also would like to take the liberty to give you
my opinion on what would be the best manner for you to refute
these allegations.
"In your place, I would ignore all the polemics which do not refer
to the accusations in a factual manner. What you have confessed
yourself from the time of your youth, should thereby be also taken
care of, and hardly any person with a legal mind would still hold
this against you, unless the court does so. That your travel
accounts are not based on personal experiences, that they are just
stories told in the first person, this also cannot be regarded as
an objectionable act on your part by any man of literature. Thus,
the only thing that is left is to finally come forward with the
factual proof that those frequently mentioned obscene passages
were not written by you, but edited in by the publisher. As far
the plagiarisms are concerned, you have been accused of, experts
ought to be able to decide to which extent these might be
plagiarisms or to which extent they are only rewritten subject
matters and thoughts. Based on the first editions, comparing them
with the new editions, it ought to be possible to determine,
whether the manner, the train of thought, and the style of the
newly added sentences organically fit with your style and the book
or not. I think, you should now concentrate all of your defence
to such realities and push incessantly for these things to be
finally decided in court. All other articles written by your
friends, who are just talking in general about your works'
outstanding qualities, which are by no means disputed, could not
possibly have any special effect on this embarrassing affair as
such.
"So, set all means in motion to arrive at a vindication in court.
Should this be unsuccessful, absolute silence will be the best
course of action, and should this be successful, even that part of
the press which supports your presents opponents will also have to
accept the court's exoneration and spread the word among the
people.
"Sickness has delayed this letter. Forgive this openness, which
comes from honest benevolence, and let me greet you
"yours truly
Peter Rosegger."
Krieglach, 7/2/1910.
That Peter Rosegger, the distinguished, sensitive, and humanely
thinking aristocrat of the mind, regards what he has mentioned
concerning my youth as finished and done away with, goes without
saying. Only lowly developed persons can wade through such dregs
and residues. I myself have also, a long time ago, erased this
chapter of my life, and thus I have to judge everyone who talks or
writes about me by the same standards which I here find in
Rosegger's letter. He who does not forgive, will not be forgiven
either; this is the just law of heaven and of earth.
As far as the "obscenities" are concerned as well as the proof
that they were not written by me, I will have to discuss this
subject in the next chapter, but let me make one remark, which I
deem necessary, right here and now. This is that I am not the one
who has to prove that these indecent passages were not written by
me, but rather they will have to prove to me that I am the author.
This is just as self-evident as it is correct. No judge of our
times would even consider dragging me back to the times of
thumb-screws and the "Spanish maiden", when the accusor was not
required to prove anything, but the accused was the one who had to
prove his innocence. This simply had to be impossible in most
cases. For strategic reasons in the course of a lawsuit, I have
been falsely accused of having written the "Book of Love" for
Münchmeyer. How can I prove that this is untrue? Let's suppose
Münchmeyer's lawyer had come up with the insane idea to assert in
court that Peter Rosegger had written the notorious "Temple of
Venus". Would Rosegger supply the proof that this was a lie? Or
would he say that the truth of this assertion would have to proven
to him? I am convinced, he would do the latter. And I do so as
well. I demand that my original manuscripts are brought in as
evidence. There can be no other proof.
As far as the acts of plagiarism are concerned, Peter Rosegger had
mentioned, the situation is like this: The Benedictine monk
Father Pöllmann has written a series of articles against me and my
works, starting with the threat that out of my works he would
construct a figurative noose around my neck, to "whip me out of
the temple of German art". Here, he has employed the right
metaphor, for every one of his allegations, he afterwards cast
upon me, was nothing but a snap of a whip, harsh, sharp, tough,
loveless, and sadistic, therefore outraging the readers, and the
echoes of its snap faded away without effect. It was also such an
empty crack of a boy's whip, when he accused me of plagiarism and
unsuccessfully made every effort in proving the truthfulness of
his allegation. There, he talked like an ignorant man and could
therefore achieve nothing but the well known effects of ignorance.
The newspaper called "Grazer Tagespost" wrote about this:
"Father Pöllmann, a well known gentleman, who has just lately,
with genuinely Christian humility, awarded himself the decorative
cognomen of a `respected critic', has very quickly forgotten the
moral defeat which he had suffered in his battle of name-calling
against the travelling author Karl May, because recently he again
put his foot in his mouth etc. etc."
The thing was that in some of my very first and oldest traveller's
tales, which I wrote when I did not possess the necessary
experience yet, I let the events I described take place before a
geographical background which I took from well known, readily
accessible books. This is not just allowed, it even happens quite
frequently. To adapt descriptions of places for one's own needs,
can never be a theft. A literary theft, plagiarism this is, is
only committed when essential components of another author's
mental creation are copied and then used in a manner which makes
them an essential component of the plagiarist's work and thereby
the impression is created that they were his own thoughts. But I
have never done something like this and I also never will. Works
of geography, especially when the information contained has become
common knowledge, can be used without thinking of it twice, as
long as no entire printed sheets or sequences of pages are copied
identically and the second author's work, in spite of the copied
parts, forms an independent mental achievement. In the
introduction to Voigtländer's book on "Authorship and Publishing
Law" it reads:
"No person creates the world of his thoughts solely by himself.
He constructs it on top of what others have invented, said, and
written before him or together with him. Only then at best, his
very own creation begins. Even the most creative of all
activities, the one of a poet, ranks highest, achieves the
greatest success, when it consecrates with an artistic form those
ideas, which along with the poet, are also thought and felt by his
entire people. And not even the form is entirely the poet's
property, because the form is supplied by the refined language,
"which creates literature and thinks for you", and which has given
to many a man who thinks himself to be a poet more than the form,
but also thoughts or the appearance of thoughts. To put it brief,
writers and artists are with their knowledge and abilities in the
midst and on the top of the cultural achievements of many
millennia. If Goethe had grown up on a lonely island, he would
not have become Goethe. But once someone has been granted such a
gifted spirit, that he has been able to advance the cultural
achievements of mankind by one step, because he has been allowed
to continue the ancestors' work, then it is just right _that_his_
_work_in_turn_shall_in_due_time_be_made_available_for_others,_to_
_use_it_freely,_not_just_its_contents,_but_also_its_form."_
This is what the publisher of the law says, and there is no cause
to dispute what he says. I, not even having committed what he
explicitly permits, am thereby perfectly vindicated. Someone else
wrote: "Everything is more or less plagiarism committed against
achievement of culture, the mind, or the imagination. The
intellectual upper class, those who possess education and culture
to a higher degree, will always, more or less, feed on _one_
reservoir which has been filled by the achievements of other,
earlier, greater minds."
In issue no. 268 of the "Feder" <pen>, the magazine for authors
and journalists, coming out two times per month, it says: "Since
it is impossible for author of popularised scientific articles to
make something up, everyone has to be also a plagiarist to a
certain degree. If the main part of the related thoughts are new,
one might very well be justified in using suitable ornaments from
already existing works. According to Emerson, _the_greatest_
_genius_is_at_the_same_time_also_the_greatest_borrower._ Here, all
depends on how it is done. _You_may_take_what_is_good_wherever_
_you_find_it,_ if you want to achieve great purpose with it; but
you must not let it show; something truly new has to be produced
from the borrowed material."
It is a well known fact that Maeterlinck [a] had simply copied in
one of his plays three scenes from Paul Heyse. Heyse protested;
but Maeterlinck laughed at him and just had the play published
under his name. It is just as well known that the popular song
from "Der Freischütz" entitled "Wir winden dir den Jungfernkranz"
<we weave for you the bridal wreath> was not written by Weber, but
an almost entirely unknown chief conductor from Gotha. Weber
heard it and used it in his "Freischütz", without caring about the
danger of being described as a plagiarist and a thief. It is
generally accepted that Shakespeare was the greatest literary
thief we know. If the principles of Father Pöllmann would be
applied, even various authors of biblical books would have to be
called literary thieves. I could continue listing an even greater
number of examples, but want to limit myself to citing Goethe, our
very greatest classic, and Alexander Dumas, the most successful
novelist of the modern age. Dumas borrowed extraordinary much.
He could not exist without outside help and exceeded in this very
far beyond what is permissible in literature. For instance, it is
known that he has exploited the tale of the "Gold Bug" by Edgar
Poe, to create some of the most exciting passages of his "Count of
Monte Christo". And as far as Goethe is concerned, I will quote
from a short article, which was recently published in several
newspapers under the title "Goethe on plagiarism":
[a] In 1908, Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949, Nobel Prize 1911)
had turned to Paul Heyse (1830-1914, Nobel Prize 1910) via
his German translator Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski
(1873-1936) to ask for his permission to use two ideas from
Heyse's play "Mary of Magdala" in his own play on the same
topic in exchange for a share in the royalties. Heyse was
outraged and harshly rejected this offer. Maeterlinck
nevertheless used Heyse's ideas, but in a manner which did not
constitute plagiarism and openly pointed this out in an
appendix to the German edition of his play. Heyse complained
in an article and von Oppeln-Bronikowski answered by
publishing the letters which had been exchanged between them
and referred to an expertise, attesting that this was not a
case of plagiarism. In 1911, a letter by von
Oppeln-Bronikowski was published in a magazine, denouncing
Karl May's version as an audacious lie.
"Nowadays, it is very easy to be regarded as a plagiarist. An
author only has to fail to quote the source from which he has
taken one or another passage, may it be intentionally or
unintentionally. Everyone has such a dear friend, who will, after
having been so fortunate to discover the plagiarist, publicly
denounce him. Richard von Kralik has recently been accused of
plagiarism, because he was - with out any guilt on his part -
quoted incorrectly. We want to remind those who enjoy sniffing
out plagiarism of Goethe's view on plagiarism. The subject of his
conversation with Eckermann on January the 18th, 1825, were Lord
Byron's supposed plagiarisms. See `Eckermanns Gespräche mit
Goethe' <Eckermann's conversations with Goethe>, 3rd edition,
volume I, page 133. There, Goethe said: `Byron also does not
know how to defend himself against such simple-minded attacks,
directed against himself by his own nation; he should have spoken
out more forcefully against them. _Whatever_is_there,_this_is_
_mine,_ he should have said. _Whether_I_have_taken_it_from_real_
_life_or_from_a_book,_this_is_all_the_same;__the_only_thing_which_
_mattered_was_that_I_used_it_properly!_ Walter Scott needed a
scene from my `Egmont', and he had a right to take it, _and_
_because_it_was_done_in_an_intelligent_manner,_he_is_to_be_
_praised._ Thus, he has also recreated my character of `Mignon' in
one of his novels, but whether he has done it with just as much
wisdom, is a different question. Lord Byron's `transformed devil'
is an extended Mephistopheles, and this is right so. If he had
wanted to avoid the similarity on an original whim, he would have
had to achieve a worse result. Thus, my Mephistopheles sings a
song written by Shakespeare, and why should he not do so? Why
should I take the trouble of inventing a song of my own, while
Shakespeare's was just right and said just what it was supposed
to? Therefore, when the beginning of my `Faust' has some
similarity with the one found in the book of `Job', this is again
just right so, and I am rather to be praised than to be scolded
for that.'"
This shall be the end of this short selection of famous names as
references. What have out most famous authors done without having
suffered such verbal abuse? And what have I done to be treated
like the lowest of all cheaters and thieves? I have, without
thinking much of it, decorated some of my small, Asian tales with
entirely irrelevant geographical and ethnographical arabesques,
which I found in books, which, for a long time, belong to the
public. This is permissable. This is even my right. But what
does Father Pöllmann say to this? He resorts to public
name-calling, saying I was a _"pirate_in_the_field_of_literature,_
_for_all_eternity_the_prime_example_of_a_literary_thief!"_
Emerson, one of the most famous and most noble men of America,
says: "The greatest genius is at the same time also the greatest
borrower." And Goethe says: "Whatever is there, this is mine.
Whether I have taken it from real life or from a book, this is all
the same!" How would Father Pöllmann have to pass an analogous
judgement on these two champions? To him, they would have to be
"for all eternity, the worst among all literary fiends", exuding
the stench of greedy rapacity and moral corruption! A criticism
which is thus ignorant, thus inexperienced, thus self-promoting,
and thus exceeding all limits, as this one, constitutes a danger
not just to literature, but also to the entire people.
I have written my "traveller's tales" just the way I had
originally planed to write them for the human soul, for the soul,
and only for the soul. And only the soul alone, for which they
have been written, shall read them, for it alone can understand
and comprehend me. I do not pick up my pen for soulless readers.
An exemplary author, writing exemplary stories for exemplary
readers is not what I am or I ever would want to be or become.
Once we will have reached this point that there are only exemplary
authors, exemplary readers, and exemplary books, this will be the
end! I am so bold to assert that we must not use the existing
exemplary books, but rather the existing trash as examples, to
model our own books after, if we wish to achieve what the true
friends of the people seek to achieve. Let us not write like the
boring ones, which are not read, let us rather write like the
trashy authors, who know how to win a hundred thousands and
millions of subscribers! But our topics shall be noble, as noble
as our purposes and goals. Write for the great soul! Do not
write for the tiny spirits, on whom your efforts will be waisted
and dispersed, without them ever being grateful to you. Because
however much effort you put into seeking their applause, they will
still maintain that they were able to do it better, though they
are not capable of anything at all! And do not write anything
small, at least nothing earthly small. But rather raise your eyes
up to how everything fits together on the big scale. Small things
might also be found there, but behind and in these small things,
the truly great thing live. And even if you should commit
mistakes in the process, mistakes as many and as big as the ones
Karl May has made, this will do no harm. It is better to
occasionally stumble on the path which leads upwards and to
finally reach the top regardless, than not to stumble on the path
which leads downwards and to succumb to the depth. Or even to run
round and round one's own equator, holding one's head up high and
taking proud steps, always returning to oneself again and again,
without having climbed over any higher ground. For mountains are
what we must have, ideals, highly situated intermediate stops and
final goals.
Perhaps, I have just too many ideals and goals and am therefore
running the risk not to achieve a single one of them; but I do
not fear that this might be so. I have already said what I want
and what goals I am seeking; I do not need to repeat it. And I
have already had to overcome so many steep heights, that I cannot
possibly regard myself as one of those poor devils who never leave
the plane of their own equator. There are some people who
recommend my style as an example for others; there are different
people who say that I had no style; and thirdly, there are people
who maintain that did have a style, but that it was an
extraordinarily bad one. The truth is that I do not pay any
attention to my style at all. I write whatever comes from my
soul, and I write it the way I hear it inside of me. I never
change anything, and never improve anything. Thus, my style is my
soul, and not my "style", but my soul shall talk to the readers.
I also do not employ any so-called artistic form. My literary
garments have not been cut to size, sewn, or even ironed by any
tailor. It is natural cloth. I wrap myself in it, drape it as I
need it or according to the mood I am in when I write. Therefore,
what I write has such a direct effect and not an effect which
would be achieved by pretty outward appearances, which possess no
internal value. I do not want to capture the reader, not grasp
him externally, but rather I want to enter in his inner self, I
want to access his soul, his heart, his emotions. There I will
stay, for there I can and may stay, because I neither come with
distracting forms nor distracting garments and am just the way the
soul wants me to be. That this is the right thing, decades of
beautiful experiences have confirmed to me. I must, can, and may
take the liberty of displaying this honest and natural quality,
because solely by these means, I am able to effectuate what I want
to achieve, because I do not ask my readers to conform to a
different or even higher artistic standard than I ask from myself,
and because the time has not come, yet, when I will have to give
my work also an external form, which is on an aesthetically higher
level. Now, I still make my sketches, and sketches are commonly
accepted as they are.
In my entire work, not including the humorous short stories and
village-tales from the Ore Mountains, there is not a single
character which was fully developed and perfected by me, not even
Winnetou and Hadji Halef Omar, those two about whom I have written
more than about any other characters. After all, I am not
finished with my own development yet, I am still changing. Inside
of me, everything is still moving ahead, and of the characters
within me, all of my topics are moving along with me. I know my
goal; but until I will have reached it, I am still travelling,
and all of my thoughts are still travelling. Naturally, none of
our poets and artists, and mainly none of our great classics, have
postponed their work, until they have grown mentally mature
enough, but I am to be regarded as an outsider in this respect as
well, am even described by many as an outlaw or outcast, and
therefore, I may not even by a long shot take those liberties
which others take for granted. What is regarded as the most
natural thing in the world with others, is in me either regarded
as bad or ridiculous, and things which are accepted as an excuse,
a reason for forgiveness, for others are being ignored in my case.
One single time, I have intended to write something of artistic
value, my "Babel and Bible". What was the consequence? It has
been described as a "miserable fabrication", and so much mockery
and sneering has been heaped up on it, as if it had been written
by a harlequin or an ape. Such an experience makes a person stand
back and await his time. And this time will come for sure.
Literary buffoons can very well be swept off the scene, but
spiritual movements cannot be suppressed, for they are invincible.
I would not think of making accusations, since nothing would come
out of it, anyhow. Nevertheless, I must not fail to give one
example to illustrate the fact I touched upon here, one single
example which says it all thus clearly that I can easily forgo all
other evidence. This example concerns an organisation, which has
been founded for the purpose of establishing libraries for the
people and making books more readily available, and which has
distributed, until now, several thousands of my volumes each year.
Suddenly, they stopped this, and being asked about it, the central
office of this organisation issued the following statement, which
had been published by several newspapers: "On our part, we do
refrain from the further distribution of May's writings and no
longer offer these books through our catalogues, but we do not
intent to express by this that the contents of May's traveller's
tales would be objectionable, and we also to not ask the boards of
our organisations to go through the trouble of removing these
books from the libraries for that matter. Our current
disapproving position is not directed against the _writings,_ but
against the _personage_ of the author. _Thus,_you_can_continue_to_
_allow_these_volumes_to_be_checked_out_without_any_need_for_
_concern."_ This is surely enough! My books are beyond reproach;
but I as a person am publicly condemned! Why? Due to this
"scheme" I already talk about earlier. Therefore, do not think
that the "Karl-May-persecution" or, to put it a bit more decently,
the "Karl-May-problem" was a matter of literature. Here are, by
no means, literary or even ethical reasons at play, but it is, to
call it by its proper name, a solely personal butchering for the
morally lowest reasons pertaining to my lawsuits. What they say
in this context about moral and journalistic necessities is
nothing but a bombastic show, to conceal the truth. If someone
would want to write a novel about this, this could become the most
sensational one of all colportage novels, and the main characters
would be the following: The former chief editor Dr. Hermann
Cardauns in Bonn, the former colporteuse Pauline Münchmeyer in
Dresden, the Franciscan monk Dr. Expeditus Schmidt in Munich, the
former social democrat Rudolf Lebius in Charlottenburg, who has
seceded from the Christian church, the Benedictine Father Ansgar
Pöllmann in Beuron, and the lawyer of the colporteuse Münchmeyer,
Dr. Gerlach in Niederlößnitz near Dresden. This novel would be
most important for the purpose of shedding some light on the
present legislation and would also cast surprising side-lights on
other conditions, conditions of society, business, and the psyche.
There, we would get to see much filth, very much filth, which is
anything but tasteful, and thus, I want, since I have to mention
and demonstrate this filth here as well, to try my best to get
this over with as quickly as possible.