Auswahl aus Die Leute von Seldwyla

Gottfried Keller's novellas expose the petty ambitions, proud stubbornness, and quiet heroism of Seldwyla's citizens with an irony that never hardens into cruelty. In "Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe," two young lovers caught between feuding farmers discover that village hatreds run deeper than romance. "Pankraz der Schmoller" follows a sulky boy who must leave everything he knows to find himself. And "Frau Regel Amrain und ihr Jüngster" celebrates a single mother's defiant decency in a town that prizes conformity. These are stories where small stakes reveal large truths: about pride that destroys, love that persists against grain, and the ordinary courage required to raise a child well. Keller writes with the warm eye of someone who knows that virtue and folly often wear the same face. More than a century later, Seldwyla remains a mirror held up to any community that believes it knows better than its members what they should become.