Sunday 18 July 2010

Calmet anno 1976


In 1976, Merlin Verlag published an edition of Calmet's Dissertation, Des Hochwürdigen Herrn Augustini Calmet gelehrte Verhandlung von denen sogenannten Vampiren oder zurückkommenden Verstorbenen as the fourth volume in the series Merlin's Bibliothek der geheimen Wissenschaften und magischen Künste (Merlin's library of the secret sciences and magical arts). In fact, it was only of a modernization of the original German translation of volume II of Calmet's second edition from 1751, i.e. the part that deals with vampires.

Apart from a number of illustrations, the book contains an essay by Dipl.-Psych. Wolfgang Bauer on the early literature on vampires and revenants: Von denen Traktaten. Die historischen Vampirschriften und ihre Verfasser. The essay relies on Ranft, Harenberg and Summers in particular, and seems pretty dated now, not least because Bauer's psychological background clearly leads him to psychoanalyze the vampire, of course quoting from Freud's Totem und Tabu: 'Denn deutet man eine Reihe von abergläubischen Vorstellungen um den Vampir in Zusammenhang näher aus, so ergibt sich, daß diese im Gesamtkonzept eine ausgepr]agte Mutterleibsphantasie konstitueren.' And so forth.

Nowadays, we have the 'ungekürzte Ausgabe' edited by Abraham & Irina Silberschmidt which was published in 2006 by Edition Roter Drache.

More information on Merlin's Bibliothek der geheimen Wissenschaften und magischen Künste can be found in this part of the history of the publisher, Merlin Verlag, and here.

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...