Introduction to German Poetry

by Gustave Mathieu

  DOVER BOOKS ON LANGUAGE

  INTRODUCTION TO HAWAIIAN GRAMMAR, W. D. Alexander. (0-486-43432-X)

  FIVE GREAT GERMAN SHORT STORIES/FÜNF DEUTSCHE MEISTERERZÄHLUNGEN: A DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Stanley Appelbaum (ed.). (0-486-27619-8)

  GREAT GERMAN POETS OF THE ROMANTIC ERA/BERÜHMTE GEDICHTE DER DEUTSCHEN ROMANTIK, Stanley Appelbaum (ed.). (0-486-28497-2)

  INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH POETRY: A DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Stanley Appelbaum (ed.). (0-486-26711-3)

  INTERNATIONAL AIRLINE PHRASE BOOK IN SIX LANGUAGES, Joseph W. Bator. (0-486-22017-6)

  FLOWERS OF EVIL AND OTHER WORKS/LES FLEURS DU MAL, Charles Baudelaire (edited and translated by Wallace Fowlie). (0-486-27092-0)

  EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE: EASY LESSONS IN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (0-486-21394-3)

  FIRST STEPS IN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS: A BOOK FOR BEGINNERS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (0-486-43099-5)

  FRENCH WORD GAMES AND PUZZLES, Sister Chantal. (0-486-28481-6)

  FALLACIES AND PITFALLS OF LANGUAGE, Morris S. Engel. (0-486-28274-0)

  FIRST SPANISH READER: A BEGINNER’S DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Angel Flores (ed.). (0-486-25810-6)

  SPANISH POETRY/POESiA ESPAÑOLA: A DUAL-LANGUAGE ANTHOLOGY, Angel Flores (ed.). (0-486-40171-5)

  SPANISH STORIES/CUENTOS ESPAÑOLES: A DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Angel Flores (ed.). (0-486-25399-6)

  INTRODUCTION TO SPANISH POETRY: A DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Eugenio Florit (ed.). (0-486-26712-1)

  FRENCH STORIES/CONTES FRANÇAIS: A DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Wallace Fowlie (ed.). (0-486-26443-2)

  MODERN FRENCH POETS: SELECTIONS WITH TRANSLATIONS, Wallace Fowlie (ed.). (0-486-27323-7)

  LATIN SELECTIONS/FLORILEGIUM LATINUM, Moses Hadas and Thomas Suits (eds.). (0-486-27059-9)

  ITALIAN STORIES/NOVELLE ITALIANE: A DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Robert A. Hall, Jr. (ed.). (0-486-26180-8)

  A TIBETAN-ENGLISH DICTIONARY, H. A. Jaschke. (0-486-42697-1 )

  EVERYDAY ENGLISH-RUSSIAN CONVERSATIONS, Leonid Kossman. (0-486-29877-9)

  FRENCH: HOW TO SPEAK AND WRITE IT, Joseph Lemaitre. (0-486-20268-2)

  INTRODUCTION TO GERMAN POETRY: A DUAL-LANGUAGE BOOK, Gustave Mathieu and Guy Stern (eds.). (0-486-2671 3-X)

  BEST SHORT STORIES/LES MEILLEURS CONTES, Guy de Maupassant. (0-486-28918-4)

  RUSSIAN-ENGLISH AND ENGLISH-RUSSIAN DICTIONARY, M. A. O’Brien. (ed.). (0-486-20208-9)

  SIMPLIFIED GRAMMAR OF ARABIC, PERSIAN AND HINDUSTANI, E. H. PALMER. (0-486-42475-8)

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1959, 1987 by Dover Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Bibliographical Note

  This Dover edition, first published in 1991, is an unabridged and updated republication of the work originally published under the title Invitation to German Poetry by Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1959.

  This edition is also published together with a cassette (ISBN 0-486-99929-7) and a CD (ISBN 0-486-99672-7), both entitled Listen & Enjoy German Poetry.

  The following poems and translations in this collection are reprinted by the kind permission of their publishers and authors:

  “Der Arbeitsmann” by Richard Dehmel from Gesammelte Werke. Through the kind permission of Vera Tugel-Dehmel.

  “Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme”by Stefan George from Gesamtausgabe der Werke. Verlag Helmut Küpper, Düsseldorf, Germany.

  “Der Vater” by Albrecht Haushofer from Moabiter Sonette. Lothar Blanvalet Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

  “Ich liebe Frauen” by Hermann Hesse from Die Gedichte von Hermann Hesse. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

  “Die Beiden” by Hugo von Hofinannsthal from Gesammelte Werke. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

  “Die Entwicklung der Menschheit” by Erich Kästner. Atrium Verlag, A.G., London, England.

  “An den Leser” by Franz Werfel from Gesammelte Gedichte. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Invitation to German poetry.

  Introduction to German poetry / edited by Gustave Mathieu & Guy Stern. — Dover ed.

  p. cm. — (A Dual-language book)

  Previously published as: Invitation to German poetry.

  9780486121796

  1. German poetry — Translations into English. 2. English poetry — Translations from German. 3. German poetry — History and criticism. 4. Poets, German-Biography. 5. German poetry. I. Mathieu, Gustave, 1921—. II. Stern, Guy, 1922— . III. Title. IV Series.

  PT1160.E5168 1991

  831.008 — dc20

  90–23242

  CIP

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y 11501

  Table of Contents

  DOVER BOOKS ON LANGUAGE

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Walther von der Vogelweide - (c. 1170-1230)

  Andreas Gryphius - (1616-1664)

  Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock - (1724-1803)

  Matthias Claudius - (1740-1815)

  Gottfried August Bürger - (1747-1794)

  Ludwig Heinrich Christoph Hölty - (1748-1776)

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - (1749-1832)

  Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz - (1751-1792)

  Friedrich Schiller - (1759-1805)

  Friedrich Hölderlin - (1770—1843)

  Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis) - (1772-1801)

  Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff - (1788-1857)

  Adalbert von Chamisso - (1781-1838)

  Nikolaus Lenau - (1802-1850)

  Annette von Droste-Hülshoff - (1797—1848)

  Eduard Mörike - (1804-1875)

  Ludwig Uhland - (1787-1862)

  Heinrich Heine - (1797-1856)

  August Graf von Platen - (1796-1835)

  Friedrich Rückert - (1788-1866)

  Viktor von Scheffel - (1826-1886)

  Detlev von Liliencron - (1844-1909)

  Conrad Ferdinand Meyer - (1825-1898)

  Friedrich Nietzsche - (1844-1900)

  Christian Morgenstern - (1871-1914)

  Richard Dehmel - (1863-1920)

  Hugo von Hofmannsthal - (1874-1929)

  Stefan George - (1868-1933)

  Rainer Maria Rilke - (1875-1926)

  Hermann Hesse - (1877-1962)

  Franz Werfel - (1890-1945)

  Erich Kästner - (1899-1974)

  Albrecht Haushofer - (1903-1945)

  Bertolt Brecht - (1898-1956)

  A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST

  Introduction

  German lyric poetry, more than any other literary form in which the German mind and genius have expressed themselves, has entered the main stream of the world’s cultural heritage. This is primarily due to the fortunate circumstance that the German lyric reached its greatest flowering at approximately the same time as did German music. The rare result of this felicitous marriage between word and tone was the Lieder of such nineteenth-century composers as Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Mahler, and Mendelssohn. But German poetry also found world-wide recognition through numerous student songs, many of which were written by well-known poets. The international language of music succeeded in conveying and sometimes even enhancing aesthetic values which were apt to be lost in mere translation. Thus many German poems overcame all linguistic barriers in the form of songs.

  But innumerable German poems which have not travelled abroad on the wings of song — and these exceed by far those which have — may be appreciated on their own merit as independent works of art. Ever since Goethe and the Romantics, German poe
ts have striven to make music with thoughts and words; the greatest succeeded in evoking by these words an almost magical Stimmung or mood. Contrary to the often-held belief, the German language is not harsh, clumsy, or heavy. In lyric poetry, it has proved itself as pliable a medium as any other language. Many of the selections in this anthology demonstrate the astonishing smoothness, elegance, and melody of the German language, and reveal in a small way the German poets’ great concern with the musical effects of alliteration and assonance, of rhyme and rhythm.

  In form too, German poets cultivated a wide range of structure and meter. They drew not only on their own native doggerel (Knittelvers), rhymed couplets, and the simple measures of the anonymous folksong, but imitated very successfully the classical hexameter and Greek free rhythms, Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, the Spanish trochaic tetrameter, and the more exotic and intricate patterns from the Orient, such as the Persian gazel. Despite a marked emphasis on varied form, a striking characteristic of German poetry is its general use of an unpretentious vocabulary. Influenced by the simplicity of the Volkslied, German poets, with a few exceptions such as Stefan George, have generally eschewed an esoteric vocabulary and preferred the words of everyday language, imparting to them new meaning and poetic value. This simplicity has undoubtedly contributed toward making German poetry (together with the theater) one of the art forms closest to the hearts of the people. Its striking popularity dates as far back as the minnesongs and the legendary poetry contests at the Wartburg, portrayed in Wagner’s Tannhäuser. In the sixteenth century special schools were established at Nuremberg and Mainz to teach the composition of texts and melodies which, if not always resulting in great poetry, nevertheless continued the tradition of poetry as an art arising directly from the hearts and minds of the people.

  Unlike the poetry of many other countries, German poetry was an art form which originated in the grass roots; it was considered not merely a pastime for the more educated. The popular appeal of German poetry is also mirrored in the vital role German poets and their works have played as the voice of a social or political conscience. Poets of all centuries, such as Bürger and Dehmel, called out against social evils; and during the wars against Napoleon, political poetry rallied the German people to a fight for liberation. Today German high school students are still taught to memorize and recite ballads and poems by Goethe, Schiller, Heine, and others. Innumerable parodies of the masters known by every schoolboy may even suggest that their popularity has occasionally reached the point of diminishing returns.

  The poems for the present anthology offer a panorama of the main trends in the development of the poetry of the German-speaking people. The anthology begins with a minnesong of the early Middle Ages and a poem of the seventeenth century; it then focuses on the Age of Goethe (1749-1832). Goethe more than anyone else impressed his stamp on the German lyric by freeing it from all artificial restraints and affectations. Inspired by Goethe and his contemporaries, German poetry was then able to develop according to its own genius and to advance along new lines which eventually led to the period of Expressionism and Post-Expressionism with which this anthology ends.

  The brief introductions will help the reader to understand each poet and discover in what ways each one differs from the others; he will find that every poet is an individual, even though the poet belongs to the same literary movement or mainstream as some of his contemporaries.

  The prose translations of each poem are literal and make no attempt at literary distinction. Their purpose is to help the reader achieve greater comprehension although an effort was occasionally made to retain the rhythm of the original poem.

  Walther von der Vogelweide

  (c. 1170-1230)

  Walther von der Vogelweide was the most gifted of the German minnesingers (singers of love) who, like the troubadours of other lands, wandered from court to court, singing their songs of veneration and adoration to the fair noblewomen, both single and married, of twelfth and thirteenth-century Europe. Lauded as the “leader of a choir of nightingales” in the Tristan and Isolde of his contemporary Gottfried von Strassburg, Walther wrote minnesongs which are distinguished by a delightful blending of love and nature, a remarkable euphony, and a sincerity transcending that of the convential courtier. He was the first minnesinger to break with the poetic convention imposed by the feudal code of courtly love: Walther not only celebrates his patronesses or other noblewomen, but also extols the charms and beauty of lower-born girls. Indeed, in Unter der Linde he even allows his beloved to admit, though blushingly, that she enjoyed the caresses of her lover. Walther’s range as a poet is further demonstrated by his scathing political poems directed against papal interference in German affairs.

  Walther wrote the poem Unter der Linde in the language of his time, Middle High German. For comparison, the first stanza is given here in the original as well as in modern German.

  UNDER DER LINDEN

  (In Middle High German)

  Under der linden

  an der heide

  dâ unser zweier bette was,

  dâ muget ir vinden

  schône beide

  gebrochen bluomen unde gras.

  Vor dem walde in einem tal

  tandaradei!

  schône sanc diu nahtegal.

  UNTER DER LINDE

  Unter der Linden

  Auf der Heide,

  Wo mein Liebster bei mir sass,

  Da könnt ihr finden

  Gebrochen beide

  Bunte Blumen und das Gras.

  Im nahen Wald mit hellem Schall,

  Tandaradei!

  Sang so süss die Nachtigall.

  Ich kam gegangen

  Hin zur Aue,

  Da harrte schon mein Liebster dort

  Und hat mich empfangen —

  Hehre Fraue —

  Dass ich bin selig immerfort.

  Küsst’ er mich wohl auch zur Stund’?

  Tandaradei!

  Seht, wie rot mir ist der Mund.

  Da hat er gemachet

  Hurtig voll Freude

  Ein Ruheplätzchen fur uns zwei.

  Darob wird gelachet

  Sicher noch heute,

  Kommt jemand dort des Wegs vorbei.

  An den Rosen er wohl mag —

  Tandaradei

  Merken, wo das Haupt mir lag.

  UNDER THE LINDEN

  Under the linden

  On the heath,

  Where my sweetheart sat with me,

  There you can find

  Broken, both

  Colorful flowers and grass.

  In the nearby woods, with ringing sound

  Tandaradei!

  So sweetly sang the nightingale.

  I came walking

  Up to the meadow,

  My sweetheart waited there already

  And he received me —

  Noble Lady —

  So that I’m blissful forevermore.

  Did he also kiss me then?

  Tandaradei!

  Look, how red my mouth is.

  Then he made,

  Nimble with joy,

  A small resting-place for the two of us.

  They laugh about this

  Surely still today

  If someone should pass by that way.

  From the roses he probably can

  Tandaradei!

  Tell where my head was lying.

  Dass er mich herzte,

  Wüsste es einer,

  Behüte Gott! so schämte ich mich;

  Und wie er scherzte.

  Keiner, keiner

  Erfahre das als er und ich,

  Und das kleine Vögelein —

  Tandaradei!

  Das wird wohl verschwiegen sein.

  That he caressed me,

  If someone should know it,

  God forbid! I would be ashamed;

  And how he joked.

  May no one, no one

  Learn this but him and me

  And that little bird —
>
  Tandaradei!

  That will surely be discreet.

  Andreas Gryphius

  (1616-1664)

  German poetry of the seventeenth century, often misunderstood, received scant attention during the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century it was rediscovered, largely through the efforts of the members of the Stefan George circle. (A poem by George also appears in this anthology.) By including many Baroque poems in their collections of poetry and discussing many of the Baroque writers in belletristic magazines and books, these modern poets described and demonstrated the beauty in the poems of their predecessors.

  Andreas Gryphius, while never entirely forgotten, also enjoyed a renascence at that time. In many respects he typified the poetry of his age. His choice of the sonnet form for the poem Menschliches Elende is characteristic of a period which sought its models in the poets of antiquity and of the Italian Renaissance. But Gryphius and many of his contemporaries poured into the classic forms a content at once so weighty, metaphysical, and anxiety-ridden that it all but burst the measured art form they had chosen.

  Gryphius lived in the era of the Thirty Years’ War, a time in which in Gryphius’ own words:

  The towers stand in flames; the church is toppled down;

  The city hall is rubble. The strong have been cut down,

  The virgins have been despoiled. And wherever we may look

  Are fire, pestilence, and death, which pierce through heart and mind.

  The human misery which Gryphius describes is, of course, timeless and immanent. But it is equally true that the sentiment of “all is vanity,” discernible in such phrases as “vain dream,” and “we perish like smoke,” reflected a state of mind peculiar to the emotional climate of the Thirty Years’ War.

  Another development of the age which had a shattering effect on Western man was the quick progress of the natural sciences. It was now felt that man was but matter, an organism at best. In the poetry of the age man is often compared with concrete physical things; in Gryphius’ poem with a residence, a candle, melted snow, etc. These concrete images are not startling in themselves, but coupled as they are with abstract metaphysics, they create tensions within the poem, tensions which are further compounded by the poet’s skillful and repeated exploitation of one of the hexameter’s inherent characteristics: its proclivity for antithesis. Note how Gryphius loves to use the first six syllables of a line to state a suspense-building premise which, after a tension-filled pause marked by the hexameter’s caesura, is then resolved by a foreboding and ominous conclusion contained in the next six syllables.