Grimmelshausen Text: Wie Hanau von Simplicio

Abstract

An excerpt from Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshause's picaresque novel Simplicius Simplicissimus. Grimmelshausen published Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus, which should be considered the greatest German novel of the 17th century, in 1668.
The historian Robert Ergang draws upon Gustav Könnecke's Quellen und Forschungen zur Lebensgeschichte Grimmelshausens to assert that the events related in the novel Simplicissimus could hardly have been autobiographical since Grimmelshausen lived a peaceful existence in quiet towns and villages on the fringe of the Black Forest and that the material he incorporated in his work was not taken from actual experience, but was either borrowed from the past, collected from hearsay, or created by a vivid imagination.