关键词: 舍费尔, 《长生药》, “召公”故事, 浪漫主义, “阿特柔斯家族诅咒”

Abstract: This article focuses on the German Romantic writer Leopold Schefer’s novel The Elixir of Immortality, revealing how he disrupts the singular celebration of the virtue of “loyalty” found in traditional narratives and Enlightenment adaptations through his reconstruction of the “Duke of Shao” story, as well as his excavation of the ancient Greek “House of Atreus” mythological tradition and its reception lineage in early modern Western culture. The study finds that Schefer, by appropriating the tragic motifs of “kinship sacrifice” and “blood vengeance” along with their Romantic reconfigurations and transposing them into an Oriental narrative, foregrounds the contestation between emotion and reason, the conflict between maternal community and patriarchy, and the tension between individual life value and political-ethical symbolism. This reconstruction transforms what was originally a political allegory into an ethical arena centered on emotional freedom, maternal restoration, and individual redemption. It not only accomplishes a deconstruction of Enlightenment rationalist discourse but also, through the deep mutual interpretation of Chinese and Western ethical narratives, provides a perspective of modernity—one that affirms the will to live—for examining Romantic literature’s Oriental imagination.

Key words: Leopold Schefer, The Elixir of Immortality, “Duke of Shao” story, Romanticism, “curse of the house of Atreus”