Peter Schlemihl
E38618
Peter Schlemihl is the fictional protagonist of Adelbert von Chamisso’s novella, known for selling his shadow to the Devil and suffering the social and existential consequences of this bargain.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Peter Schlemihl canonical | 2 |
| Peter Schlemihl’s Miraculous Story | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T299399 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Peter Schlemihl Context triple: [Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte, mainCharacter, Peter Schlemihl]
-
A.
William von Meister
William von Meister was an American entrepreneur and technology pioneer best known for his early work in online services and telecommunications that helped lay the groundwork for consumer internet access.
-
B.
Oskar
Oskar is a masculine given name of Germanic origin, commonly used in various European countries.
-
C.
Johann
Johann is a given name of Germanic origin commonly used in German-speaking and other European countries.
-
D.
Emil
Emil is the given name of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, the renowned Finnish military leader and statesman who served as President of Finland.
-
E.
Herman
Herman is a surname most notably associated with Edward S. Herman, an American economist, media analyst, and critic of U.S. foreign policy.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Peter Schlemihl Target entity description: Peter Schlemihl is the fictional protagonist of Adelbert von Chamisso’s novella, known for selling his shadow to the Devil and suffering the social and existential consequences of this bargain.
-
A.
William von Meister
William von Meister was an American entrepreneur and technology pioneer best known for his early work in online services and telecommunications that helped lay the groundwork for consumer internet access.
-
B.
Oskar
Oskar is a masculine given name of Germanic origin, commonly used in various European countries.
-
C.
Johann
Johann is a given name of Germanic origin commonly used in German-speaking and other European countries.
-
D.
Emil
Emil is the given name of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, the renowned Finnish military leader and statesman who served as President of Finland.
-
E.
Herman
Herman is a surname most notably associated with Edward S. Herman, an American economist, media analyst, and critic of U.S. foreign policy.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional character
ⓘ
literary character ⓘ |
| appearsInGenre | novella ⓘ |
| appearsInLanguage | German ⓘ |
| associatedWithTheme |
Faustian bargain
ⓘ
individual versus society ⓘ material wealth versus spiritual integrity ⓘ value of the soul ⓘ |
| createdBy | Adelbert von Chamisso ⓘ |
| experiences |
loss of identity
ⓘ
shame ⓘ social exclusion ⓘ |
| firstPublishedInWork | 1814 ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation |
film adaptations
ⓘ
opera adaptations ⓘ stage adaptations ⓘ |
| hasMoral |
social acceptance has limits without inner integrity
ⓘ
true worth lies beyond material riches ⓘ |
| hasMotif |
loss of shadow
ⓘ
magic purse ⓘ |
| hasNameEtymology | Yiddish word "schlemiel" meaning "unlucky person" ⓘ |
| hasNationalityInFiction | German ⓘ |
| influencedLiteraryTradition |
Romanticism
ⓘ
surface form:
German Romanticism
|
| inspired | later shadow-themed literary works ⓘ |
| knownFor |
allegorical exploration of identity
ⓘ
being shunned for lacking a shadow ⓘ selling his shadow ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | Romanticism ⓘ |
| makesPactWith | the Devil ⓘ |
| portrayedAs |
honest
ⓘ
impressionable ⓘ naive ⓘ |
| protagonistOf |
Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte
ⓘ
Peter Schlemihl self-linksurface differs ⓘ
surface form:
Peter Schlemihl’s Miraculous Story
|
| receives | bottomless purse ⓘ |
| rejects | further bargains with the Devil ⓘ |
| seeks | redemption ⓘ |
| sells | his shadow ⓘ |
| sellsTo | the Devil ⓘ |
| setIn | 19th-century Europe ⓘ |
| symbolizes |
existential anxiety
ⓘ
social alienation ⓘ the outsider ⓘ |
| undergoes |
moral development
ⓘ
spiritual awakening ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Peter Schlemihl Description of subject: Peter Schlemihl is the fictional protagonist of Adelbert von Chamisso’s novella, known for selling his shadow to the Devil and suffering the social and existential consequences of this bargain.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Peter Schlemihl’s Miraculous Story