How gentle and calm your life and death were, you cheerful schoolmaster Wutz! Jean Paul created the most lovable eccentric in German literature in his early work. Even within the gloomy walls of the boarding school, the future schoolmaster practices the "Wutzian art of always being cheerful." And as a student, he perfects this art by dancing into love on Carnival morning and falling for the red handkerchief of the young Justina. As a schoolmaster in the village of Auenthal, he will not be able to afford the most important new releases on the book market - yet, to ensure he has something worthwhile to read, he simply writes his own Werther and his Critique of Pure Reason. However, in the end, after long hours of study in his library, he can no longer explain why the printers see the texts that way.