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Retired naval captain Sir Morosus disinherits his nephew Henry after learning that Henry’s wife Aminta is an opera singer. The barber devises a sham marriage so Morosus will abandon his plan to wed. Disguised as the quiet bride Timidia, Aminta marries him, then becomes noisily impossible. When a mock divorce fails, the troupe reveals the deception. Morosus laughs, blesses Henry and Aminta’s union, and restores Henry as his heir.
Written during the First World War, Zweig’s nine-scene dramatic poem uses the biblical and Jewish story of Jeremiah to oppose wartime propaganda and imagine peace. Its central idea is the moral strength of the defeated, whose spirit can endure even when a people is put in chains.
Retired naval captain Sir Morosus disinherits his nephew Henry after learning that Henry’s wife Aminta is an opera singer. The barber devises a sham marriage so Morosus will abandon his plan to wed. Disguised as the quiet bride Timidia, Aminta marries him, then becomes noisily impossible. When a mock divorce fails, the troupe reveals the deception. Morosus laughs, blesses Henry and Aminta’s union, and restores Henry as his heir.
Written during the First World War, Zweig’s nine-scene dramatic poem uses the biblical and Jewish story of Jeremiah to oppose wartime propaganda and imagine peace. Its central idea is the moral strength of the defeated, whose spirit can endure even when a people is put in chains.