The creature has also been interpreted as representing the true author himself (or his narrative work), with the book and the sword serving as mundane objects straightforwardly defining his identity, while the additional parts such as the wings (alluding to air) and the fins and fishtail (water) are allusive hints. The author of a monograph on the subject shuns the identification with the phoenix, There is an accompanying poem about the phoenix copper written in couplets which should provide some clue as to its meaning. The creature is arguably identifiable as the "phoenix copper" ( German: Phönix-Kupfer), an embodiment of "the purpose of the book". It has been described as a composite creature (a chimera) with the features of a goat, fish, bird, human, though " Satyr-head" ( Satyrkopf, rather thang goat/human) on a Chimera body, may be more apt, since the satyr is a wordplay of the "satirical" nature of the work, though the label "chimera", has been criticized as strictly incorrect, as it does not match the classical ( Homeric) chimera of the lion-goat-serpent variety. top right) depicted an enigmatic winged monster holding an illustrated book. Much has been written on the frontispiece copperplate drawing ( fig. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage himself, denouncing the world as corrupt. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and to an alternate world inhabited by mermen. After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he was so simple that he did not know what his own name was. Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The novel is told from the perspective of its protagonist Simplicius, a rogue or picaro typical of the picaresque novel, as he traverses the tumultuous world of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. Plot overview Title page of the first edition, 1669 The first edition pretends to have been printed at Mompelgart (Mömpelgart, present-day Montbéliard, France) by "Johann Fillion", but in fact they were printed in Nürnberg by Wolff Eberhard Felßecker, and though the colophon gave 1669 as the date, the publication already appeared in 1668. Simplicius Simplicissimus was published as the work of Samuel Greifnsohn vom Hirschfelt (Hirschfeld), with German Schleifheim von Sulsfort as its supposed author, but these have been deduced to be anagrammatical pseudonyms of the real author, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, whose name is only disclosed in initials "H.I.C.V.G." in an advertisement (or rather Beschluss, "postscript" to the Continuatio) near the end of the published work. The full translation by Monte Adair (1986–2012) includes the continuation as Book Six. The English translation by Alfred Thomas Scrope Goodrick (1912) included the five books and selected chapters from the continuation. The Continuatio is considered the sixth book of the same cycle by scholars, though Grimmelshausen altogether produced ten titles which he claimed belong to the same set. Each book is in turn divided into chapters. The work Simplicius Simplicissimus consists of five books nominally published 1668, with a sequel Continuatio appearing in 1669.
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