Heinrich von Kleist, Das Bettelweib von Locarno [The Beggarwoman of Locarno]

Jeffrey L. High (California State University, Long Beach)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.2: German-language Writing and Culture: Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, 800-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1810

Places

Germany, Brandenburg (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story

Resources

Heinrich von Kleist’s Das Bettelweib von Locarno [The Beggarwoman of Locarno, 1810] is the tale of a beggarwoman’s accidental death in the castle of a nobleman, and a subsequent haunting that results in the nobleman’s suicide in the burning castle. Kleist’s novella was written in early October 1810 and published on 11 October 1810 in the tenth edition of his journal, Berliner Abendblätter, and was republished with minor changes in volume 2 of Erzählungen von Heinrich von Kleist [Tales by Heinrich von Kleist, 1811]. Written during a period when tales of knights had proliferated for decades, contemporary interest in M…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1943 words

Citation: High, Jeffrey L.. "Das Bettelweib von Locarno". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 January 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13119, accessed 20 April 2024.]

Save this article