The Adventurous Simplicissimus · Chapter
X: In What Manner He Learned to Read and Write in the Wild Woods explained
Simplicissimus, living with the hermit in the woods, observes him reading the Bible and mistakes the act for a conversation with the figures in the woodcut.
What happens
Simplicissimus, living with the hermit in the woods, observes him reading the Bible and mistakes the act for a conversation with the figures in the woodcut. After a comical misunderstanding where he tries to put out a fire in the illustration, the hermit explains that the figures are not alive and that the black lines represent reading. The hermit then teaches Simplicissimus the alphabet, spelling, reading, and eventually writing, which Simplicissimus masters to the point of surpassing his teacher.
Themes in this chapter
Innocence and Experience
Simplicissimus's innocent misunderstanding of the woodcut contrasts with the hermit's experienced knowledge of reading, marking the beginning of his education.
Religion and Morality
The hermit uses the Bible as the teaching text, linking literacy with religious instruction and moral development.
Characters to notice
- Simplicissimus
Curious and naive, mistakes the woodcut figures for real people and tries to intervene in the scene; eagerly learns to read and write from the hermit.
- The Hermit
Patiently teaches Simplicissimus to read and write, beginning with the alphabet on birch-bark, despite his own limited skill in writing.
Key passages
“Now when first I saw the hermit read the Bible, I could not conceive with whom he should speak so secretly and, as I thought, so earnestly; for well I saw the moving of his lips, yet no man that spake with him”
When I first saw the hermit reading the Bible, I couldn't understand who he was talking to so secretly and seriously, because I saw his lips moving but no one else was speaking with him.
Simplicissimus's initial confusion about the act of reading.
“So I marked where he kept it, and when he had laid it aside I crept thither and opened it, and at the first assay lit upon the first chapter of Job and the picture that stood at the head thereof”
I watched where he kept the book, and when he put it down I crept over and opened it, landing on the first chapter of Job with its illustrated woodcut at the top.
Simplicissimus's first encounter with the Bible's illustrations.
“Dear child, these figures cannot talk: but what they do and what they are, that can I see from these black lines, and that do men call reading.”
Dear child, these pictures cannot speak; but I can understand what they show and represent from these black marks, and that is what people call reading.
The hermit explains the concept of reading to Simplicissimus.
“With that he wrote me down an alphabet on birch-bark, formed like print, and when I knew the letters, I learned to spell, and thereafter to read, and at last to write better than could the hermit himself; for I imitated print in everything.”
He then wrote an alphabet for me on birch bark in print-like letters, and once I knew the letters, I learned to spell, then to read, and finally to write even better than the hermit, because I copied the printed style exactly.
Simplicissimus's rapid progress in literacy under the hermit's tutelage.