The Poor Man of Toggenburg - Autobiography of Ulrich Bräker

6th June "My business is a mere trifle, yet it is often a great deal more of a burden than a hundred stints of ploughing the fields with yonder farm-labourer. Firstly, because I have not the head for it, and secondly, because I have to deal with so many uncongenial people. Because I am all too credulous, I am deceived by so many rascals who make my mind quite confused and for a long time I can't get over it. But when I have cheered up a little and think the matter over, I thank generous Providence from my heart for my little business, not only because I don't have to exert my limbs so much (but in exchange I have to plague my mind all the more) and can live a little better, but also for the opportunity to do some good in the world, supplying work and bread to hundreds

25th June Bräker asks God to help him because one of the dregs of society has tempted him with pictures "like the apple of Sodom". [Chronik, p 169]

25th July Bräker decides to stop writing a diary, even though he still thinks it does him good to write down his complaints about life. He feels that the urge to write comes on only when things are going badly, also he regrets his limitations in expressing his thoughts. He once thought to share useful teachings with his children, but now he would be content "if I could only entice them by my example to keep a journal themselves, for their own benefit." [Chronik, p 170]

"In the year 1780 I enlarged my business considerably and began to weave cloth on my own account, and found that this did well. My credit grew from day to day, my creditors soon noticed that my affairs were taking a new turn. I acquired as much capital and materials as I needed, and now firmly and truly believed that I had overcome my difficulties once and for all..."

This was a year of much literary production for Bräker. He wrote, "in secret" (Voellmy) his essay "Etwas über William Shakespeares Schauspiele..." - ["Something of William Shakespeare's dramas, by a poor untaught citizen of the world who enjoyed the good fortune of reading him"]. Surely one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary criticism ever penned, it was not published in Bräker's lifetime and was unknown to scholarship before 1877. Bräker may have been urged to read him by Ambühl, who was himself a dramatist and a great admirer of Shakespeare. Voellmy, however, thinks that the person who actually lent him the books was Giezendanner. Voellmy does a fairly thorough criticism of this essay (see v 3 pp 311-332) and Derek Bowman published an English edition and translation in 1979. The translation that Bräker used was the prose translation by Johann Joachim Eschenburg, published by Füssli, 1775-77. [Chronik, p 178]. It is uncertain whether Bräker intended to publish his essay, but it seems very likely that he intended to distribute it to the members of the Moral Society. It is dedicated to a patron, unnamed but almost certainly Giezendanner.

The main interest of this essay is of course the way in which it reflects Bräker's own character through his likes and dislikes of the different plays.

Hamlet

is for him the "jewel in the crown", he says it is constructed like a princely fortress where one finds fine gilded rooms but also stables and dungeons. He admires

Julius Caesar

so much that he has learned most of it by heart, also

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

and other historical plays, and, rather surprisingly,

Timon of Athens

. The portrayal of Jack Cade's rebellion in

Henry VI, part II

pleases him: "Whoever has once heard angry peasants boasting must call out to you: O William, how well you knew

"Hundreds" would include wives and children of working age, which could be very young.