Peter Schlemihl
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Peter Schlemiel is the title character of an 1814 story, "Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte" ("Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story"), written in German by exiled French aristocrat Adelbert von Chamisso. In the story, Schlemiel sells his shadow to the Devil for a bottomless wallet, only to find that a man without a shadow is shunned by human society. The woman he loves rejects him, and he spends the rest of his life wandering the world in scientific exploration.
The Yiddish word Schlemiel—and its Hebrew cognate Shlumi'el—mean a hopelessly incompetent person, a bungler. Consequently, the name is a synonym of one who makes a desperate or silly bargain.
The story was widely read and the character became a common cultural reference in many countries, much as many of us might refer to "Robin Hood" to mean anybody who tries to help the poor by hurting the rich. As with Robin Hood, the story was basically intended for children. Generally, people remember the part about the shadow and forget how the story ends, simplifying Chamisso's lesson to "don't sell your shadow to the Devil."
Schlemiel appears in Offenbach's opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann.
The name is spelled a number of different ways, and the original was titled "Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte" ("Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story").
Sources:
- Peter Schlemiel : The Man Who Sold His Shadow
