The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Encyclopedia
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 name of a poem by Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...

s.

Story

The poem begins as an old sorcerer
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

 departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of fetching water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

 by pail, the apprentice enchants a broom
Broom
A broom is a cleaning tool consisting of stiff fibers attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan....

 to do the work for him — using magic in which he is not yet fully trained. The floor is soon awash with water, and the apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know how.

Not knowing how to control the enchanted broom, the apprentice splits it in two with an axe, but each of the pieces becomes a new broom and takes up a pail and continues fetching water, now at twice the speed. When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns, quickly breaks the spell and saves the day. The poem finishes with the old sorcerer's statement that powerful spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

s should only be called by the master himself.

German culture

Der Zauberlehrling is well-known in the German-speaking world. The lines in which the apprentice implores the returning sorcerer to help him with the mess he has created have turned into a cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...

, especially the line Die Geister, die ich rief ("The spirits that I called"), a garbled version of one of Goethe's lines, which is often used to describe a situation where somebody summons help or uses allies that he cannot control, especially in politics.

Fantasia

The acclaimed animated dialogue-free 1940 Disney film Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

popularized the story from Goethe's poem, and the Paul Dukas
Paul Dukas
Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

 symphonic poem based on it
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)
For the 2010 film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, see The Sorcerer's Apprentice .The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a symphonic poem by the French composer Paul Dukas, written in 1896-97. Subtitled "Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe," the piece was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 poem of the...

, in one of eight animated shorts based on classical music. In the piece, which retains the title "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

 plays the apprentice, and the story follows Goethe's original closely, except that the sorcerer ("Yen Sid", or Disney backwards)) is stern and angry with his apprentice when he saves him. Fantasia popularized Goethe's story to a worldwide audience. The segment proved so popular that it was repeated, in its original form, in the sequel Fantasia 2000
Fantasia 2000
Fantasia 2000 is a 1999 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was the 38th feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and a sequel to 1940's Fantasia...

.

Similar stories

Some versions of the tale differ from Goethe's, and in some versions the sorcerer is angry at the apprentice and in some even expels the apprentice for causing the mess. In other versions, the sorcerer is a bit amused at the apprentice and he simply chides him. The sorcerer's anger with the apprentice, which appears in both the Greek Philopseudes and the film Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

, does not appear in Goethe's Der Zauberlehrling.

Philopseudes

Philopseudes (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 for "Lovers of lies") is a short frame story
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...

 by Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

, written c. AD 150. The narrator, Tychiades, is visiting the house of a sick and elderly friend, Eucrates, where he has an argument about the reality of the supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

. Several internal narrators then tell him various tales, intended to convince him that supernatural phenomena are real. Each story in turn is either rebutted or ridiculed by Tychiades.

Eventually Eucrates recounts a tale extremely similar to Goethe's Zauberlehrling, which had supposedly happened to him in his youth. The similarities are so great as to make it obvious that Lucian was Goethe's inspiration, there are several differences:
  • The sorcerer is, instead, an Egyptian mystic, a priest
    Priest
    A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

     of Isis
    Isis
    Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...

     called Pancrates.
  • Eucrates is not an apprentice, but a companion who eavesdrop
    Eavesdrop
    To eavesdrop, used as a verb, refers to eavesdropping, the act of surreptitiously listening to a private conversation.As a noun, in architecture, it can refer to:...

    s on Pancrates casting his spell.
  • Although a broom is listed as one of the items that can be animated by the spell, Eucrates actually uses a pestle
    Mortar and pestle
    A mortar and pestle is a tool used to crush, grind, and mix solid substances . The pestle is a heavy bat-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, ceramic or stone...

    . (Pancrates also sometimes used the bar of a door.)

However perhaps the most important difference is the moral of the story. In Der Zauberlehrling and in the story's iteration in the 1940 animated film Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

, it is generally presumed that the story embodies some maxim or moral, and that it is something along the lines of "don't meddle with things you don't understand" or offers a metaphor for modern society where youth and inexperience is enthroned, resulting in an increasingly out of control mess being made, and in need of 'our betters' to return and take charge once more. In Philopseudes, however, the intention is simply to ridicule tall tale
Tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, "that fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely...

s.

Other related stories

Similar themes (such as the power of magic or technology turning against the insufficiently wise person invoking it) are found in many traditions and works of art:
  • Strega Nona
    Strega Nona
    Strega Nona is an original children's book written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola about an elderly lady who helps her fellow villagers out with their troubles, most notably by curing headaches, helping single women find husbands, and ridding people of warts...

  • Golem
    Golem
    In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....

  • Frankenstein
    Frankenstein
    Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...

  • Midas
    Midas
    For the legend of Gordias, a person who was taken by the people and made King, in obedience to the command of the oracle, see Gordias.Midas or King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. This was called the Golden touch, or the...

  • Faust
    Faust
    Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...

  • "The Monkey's Paw
    The Monkey's Paw
    "The Monkey's Paw" is a horror short story by author W. W. Jacobs. It was published in England in 1902.The story is based on the famous "setup" in which three wishes are granted. In the story, the paw of a dead monkey is a talisman that grants its possessor three wishes, but the wishes come with an...

    "
  • Wish
    Wish
    A wish is a hope or desire for something. Fictionally, wishes can be used as plot devices. In folklore, opportunities for "making a wish" or for wishes to "come true" or "be granted" are themes that are sometimes used.-In literature:...

  • Sweet Porridge
    Sweet Porridge
    Sweet Porridge, often known in English under the title of The Magic Porridge Pot, is a folkloric German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm, as tale number 103 in Grimm's Fairy Tales, in the 19th century. It is Aarne-Thompson type 565, the magic mill...

  • Forbidden Planet
    Forbidden Planet
    Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, with a screenplay by Cyril Hume. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. The characters and its setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and its plot contains certain...

  • The Master and His Pupil
    The Master and His Pupil
    The Master and His Pupil is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in his English Fairy Tales.-Synopsis:A learned man had a book in which he had the knowledge to control demons. His foolish pupil one day found it open and read a spell from it. Beezlebub appeared and demanded a task from...

  • Abhimanyu
    Abhimanyu
    Abhimanyu is a tragic hero in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. He is the son of Arjuna and Subhadra, who is the half-sister of Lord Krishna...

    in Chakravyuha in the Mahabharata
    Mahabharata
    The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....


The title in popular culture

Following Goethe's poem and Dukas' symphonic piece
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)
For the 2010 film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, see The Sorcerer's Apprentice .The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a symphonic poem by the French composer Paul Dukas, written in 1896-97. Subtitled "Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe," the piece was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 poem of the...

 and the film Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

, the term "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" has had numerous iterations as the title of various media pieces. These include several novels and nonfiction books, including novels by Elspeth Huxley
Elspeth Huxley
Elspeth Joscelin Huxley CBE was a polymath, writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government advisor. She wrote 30 books; but she is best known for her lyrical books The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard which were based on her experiences growing up...

, Hanns Heinz Ewers
Hanns Heinz Ewers
Hanns Heinz Ewers was a German actor, poet, philosopher, and writer of short stories and novels. While he wrote on a wide range of subjects, he is now known mainly for his works of horror, particularly his trilogy of novels about the adventures of Frank Braun, a character modeled on himself...

, and François Augiéras. It is also the title of a Doctor Who novel
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Doctor Who)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is an original novel written by Christopher Bulis and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara.-External links:*...

 by Christopher Bulis
Christopher Bulis
Christopher Bulis is a writer best known for his work on various Doctor Who spin-offs. He is one of the most prolific authors to write for the various ranges of spin-offs from the BBC Television series Doctor Who, with twelve novels to his name, and between 1993 and 2000 he had at least one Doctor...

. Nonfiction books with this title include a travel book by Tahir Shah, and a chess book by David Bronstein and Tom Fürstenberg.

Among the various radio and television episodes with this title, the title is used for a CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...

 show in which a professional magician chooses his apprentice. There is also a BBC radio play of the same name starring Paul Rhys
Paul Rhys
Paul Rhys is a British television, film and theatre actor.Rhys was born in Wales and studied at RADA, leaving with the Bancroft Gold Medal in 1987. While there, he obtained his first major screen role, in Absolute Beginners . Since then he has seldom been off the stage and screen...

 and Harry Towb
Harry Towb
Harry Towb was a Northern Irish actor.-Early life and career:Towb's father was Russian and his mother was Irish. He attended the Finiston School and Technical College, Belfast...

 originally broadcast in 2007 and re-broadcast on BBC Radio 7.

The Sorceror's Apprentice
The Sorceror's Apprentice (Alfred Hitchcock Presents)
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is a seventh-season episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1961–1962, that was never broadcast on network television. The episode was scheduled to be episode #39 of the show's Season 7...

, is a 1962 public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...

featuring Brandon De Wilde
Brandon De Wilde
Andre Brandon deWilde was an American theatre and film actor. He was born into a theatrical family in Brooklyn. Debuting on Broadway at the age of 7, De Wilde became a national phenomenon by the time he completed his 492 performances for The Member of the Wedding and was considered a child...

 as mentally-troubled youth Hugo, after the magic wand of a kindly magician.

"Top Secret Apprentice", a segment of the Tiny Toons Adventures episode broadcast on February 1, 1991, is a modern version of the story, with Buster Bunny
Babs and Buster Bunny
Babs and Buster Bunny are cartoon characters from the Warner Bros. animated television series Tiny Toon Adventures. They are the stars of the show— they both appear in the Tiny Toons logo, and the show usually begins and ends with their gags. Buster is voiced by Charlie Adler for most of the...

 messing around with Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...

's cartoon scenery machine and getting himself into a big heap of trouble. Like the Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

segment, there is no dialogue.

There is also a live action film, The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010 film)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a 2010 fantasy adventure film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Jon Turteltaub, and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the team behind the National Treasure franchise...

, featuring a scene based on Goethe's poem (and the Fantasia version), produced by Jerry Bruckheimer
Jerry Bruckheimer
Jerome Leon "Jerry" Bruckheimer is an American film and television producer. He has achieved great success in the genres of action, drama, and science fiction. His best known television series are CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Eleventh Hour, Without a Trace, Cold Case, The...

 and starring Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...

.

A key episode in Ursula Leguin's "Earthsea
Earthsea
Earthsea is a fictional realm originally created by Ursula K. Le Guin for her short story "The Word of Unbinding", published in 1964. Earthsea became the setting for a further six books, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea, first published in 1968, and continuing with The Tombs of Atuan, The...

" series concerns a young trainee magician summoning spirits in a piece of magic which he cannot control, with very serious consequences - which, though different in concrete details, is evidently inspired by the above.

See also

  • The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)
    The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)
    For the 2010 film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, see The Sorcerer's Apprentice .The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a symphonic poem by the French composer Paul Dukas, written in 1896-97. Subtitled "Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe," the piece was inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 poem of the...

     (the symphonic poem made famous in Fantasia
    Fantasia (film)
    Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

    )
  • Sorcerer's Apprentice Syndrome
    Sorcerer's Apprentice Syndrome
    Sorcerer's Apprentice Syndrome is a particularly bad network protocol flaw, discovered in the original versions of TFTP. It was named after the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of the animated film Fantasia, because the details of its operation closely resemble the disaster that befalls the...


External links

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