SOURCE: "Conscience and the Aesthetic in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Plautus im Nonnenkloster," in Michigan Germanic Studies, Vol. XI, No. 2, Fall, 1985, pp. 159-81.

In the following essay, Rowland analyzes the interweaving of structure, motifs, and narrative perspective in Meyer's novella.

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Plautus im Nonnenkloster has been called [by Alfred Zäch, in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer: Dichtkunst als Befreiung aus Lebenshemmnissen, 1973] "ein Kleinod der Novellenkunst . . . in formaler Hinsicht makellos, höchst reizvoll als ästhetisches Spiel und doch nicht ohne menschlichen Gehalt . . ." Significantly, this praise is lavished more on the form than on the content of the work. Indeed, Meyer's story of an Italian humanist who delivers a codex of Plautine comedies and a vital Swiss girl from a convent has generally been regarded as superficial. The tenacity of this view is due in part, perhaps, to the author's own apparent assessment of the tale, which he once described...