Introduction to German Poetry
Page 8
to be as beautiful as the birds are:
Only time.
Only time! We sense a thunderous wind,
we people.
Only a short eternity;
we truly lack nothing, my wife, my child,
but all the things which prosper through us,
to be just as bold as the birds:
Only time!
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
(1874-1929)
Hugo von Hofmannsthal is probably best known outside of his native Austria as the author of the morality play Jedermann (Everyman), which is performed every year at the Salzburg Festival, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss’ operas Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Arabella, and Ariadne auf Naxos. But among German-speaking people he is equally respected for his lyric gift which pervades his poems as well as his dramas and librettos. His talent sprang forth, almost full-grown, when Hofmannsthal was only seventeen years old. Even at that age his verses had the music, the sonorous sound, the restraint, and somber seriousness which characterizes the later poem Die Beiden. The form of the poem is a variation on the sonnet structure: the number of lines are those of the traditional sonnet; the rhyme scheme is not. The very choice of this form shows the discipline and economy which Hofmannsthal exercises as a poet. Not a single unnecessary word is said. The first stanza introduces us to the young girl; the chiselled beauty of her face stands before us by means of a single simile, which equates the roundness and regularity of her features with the same qualities of the goblet, while her grace is revealed by the lightness and sureness of her walk. The young man is presented in a similar manner; his hand is as steady in controlling a young horse as hers is in the performance of her feminine task of offering the goblet. In the last part of the poem, when these two young steady hands fail to meet because they tremble so, the poet has communicated a primary emotion not by telling us of the emotion in the abstract, but by embodying it in the hands of the two young lovers, “the twosome,” as they are appropriately called in the title.
DIE BEIDEN
Sie trug den Becher in der Hand,
— Ihr Kinn und Mund glich seinem Rand —,
So leicht und sicher war ihr Gang,
Kein Tropfen aus dem Becher sprang.
So leicht und fest war seine Hand:
Er ritt auf einem jungen Pferde,
Und mit nachlässiger Gebärde
Erzwang er, dass es zitternd stand.
Jedoch wenn er aus ihrer Hand
Den leichten Becher nehmen sollte,
So war es beiden allzu schwer:
Denn beide bebten sie so sehr,
Dass keine Hand die andre fand
Und dunkler Wein am Boden rollte.
THE TWOSOME
She carried the goblet in her hand
— Her chin and mouth were like its rim —
So light and sure was her walk,
That not a drop sprang from the goblet.
So light and firm was his hand:
He rode upon a young horse,
And with a careless gesture
He forced it to halt, atremble.
When he, however, from her hand
The weightless goblet was to take,
It was too difficult for both:
For both were trembling so much,
That neither hand found the other
And dark wine rolled to the ground.
Stefan George
(1868-1933)
Stefan George brought about a reform in German poetry by reviving the canon of art for art’s sake after the fashion of the French Parnassians and Symbolists. By means of his art journal, Blätter für die Kunst, and his own poems he became the poet-priest of a small circle of German aesthetes who worshipped absolute perfection of form as the supreme canon of poetry. According to George, the poet who is the judge and seer of his time, should speak for the chosen few only, and his device of spelling nouns with small letters and omitting punctuation marks was intended as a “barbed-wire fence against the unbidden ones.” But George also set his stamp on the poetic language of Germany: he made it more stern and sparing and utilized sounds in extraordinary and richer combinations.
The poem included in this selection is a love poem. But the fact that the emotion of love is not described or analyzed but conveyed by impressions cast in flawless meter and delicately chiseled architecture also makes it George’s confession of his artistic credo: the skillful blending of images and sounds, of thought and form.
“DU SCHLANK UND REIN WIE EINE FLAMME”
Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme
Du wie der morgen zart und licht
Du blühend reis vom edlen stamme
Du wie ein quell geheim und schlicht
Begleitest mich auf sonnigen matten
Umschauerst mich im abendrauch
Erleuchtest meinen weg im schatten
Du kühler wind du heisser hauch
Du bist mein wunsch und mein gedanke
Ich atme dich mit jeder luft
Ich schlürfe dich mit jedem tranke
Ich küsse dich mit jedem duft
Du blühend reis vom edlen stamme
Du wie ein quell geheim und schlicht
Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme
Du wie der morgen zart und licht
“YOU SLIM AND PURE JUST LIKE A FLAME”
You slim and pure just like a flame
You just like morning bright and tender
You blossoming sprig on a proud stem
You like a spring concealed and plain
You accompany me on sunny mountain meadows
Surround me in the mist of eve
You light my pathway in the shadow
You cooling wind, you fiery breath
You are my wish and are my thought
I breathe you with each breath of air
I sip you with each drink
I kiss you with each fragrant odor
You blossoming sprig on a proud stem
You like a spring concealed and plain
You slim and pure just like a flame
You just like morning bright and tender
Rainer Maria Rilke
(1875-1926)
Like Stefan George, Rilke sought to create poems that were flawless works of art, impeccable in alliteration, assonance, rhyme, and rhythm. Rilke held that the act of poetic creation was not only the result of inspiration but of a hard-working craftsman grappling with his medium. In his Dinggedichte (thing-poems) Rilke imparted a startlingly new vision and refreshingly poetic vigor to the things outworn and obscured by every-day life and to “the poor words starving from commonplace usage.” Thanks to his loving concern for animate and inanimate objects — a caged panther or a staircase — the German language itself became an even more refined and sensitive poetic instrument.
Spanische Tänzerin is taken from Neue Gedichte (New Poems), a collection of lyrics written under the influence of Auguste Rodin and dedicated to him. Rilke had accepted the job as Rodin’s secretary for the sake of studying the man whom he considered to be his mentor and model. Rilke’s association with the French sculptor brought about a most significant turn in his poetic career, for he advanced from his earlier impressionistic aestheticism to a peculiarly objective and sculpturesque form.
By a masterful blending of visual and sound metaphors — note the hissing sibilants of the sharp scratch of a match and the spurt and sputter of the flame interrupted by the staccato bursts of k and t-sounds suggesting the castanets — Rilke apprehends and captures the very essence of the explosive ambiente of the flamenco dance. Note how the sharp, sculpture-like outlines of the dancer are transformed into tensely dynamic motion as the verses seem to writhe sinuously as the meaning of one line overflows into the next. Now they seem to twist and twirl, coil and recoil, snake-like, with the apposition of short and long words and tension-strained pauses signaling the unlocking of emotional floodgates. Suddenly the dancer crystallizes before us: a fiery fusi
on of art and artist, object and subject, sound and meaning. But the poem is more than that. It is also the art of the Flamenco as a manifestation of inherent erotic ardor and its embodiment in a temptress whose serpentine movements and naked arms ending in rattling castanets6 seek to ensnare us by the treacherously-enticing call of Passion, surcharged, uninhibited, and Spanish.
SPANISCHE TÄNZERIN
Wie in der Hand ein Schwefelzündholz, weiss,
eh es zur Flamme kommt, nach allen Seiten
zuckende Zungen streckt — : beginnt im Kreis
naher Beschauer hastig, hell und heiss
ihr runder Tanz sich zuckend auszubreiten.
Und plötzlich ist er Flamme ganz und gar.
Mit ihrem Blick entzündet sie ihr Haar
und dreht auf einmal mit gewagter Kunst
ihr ganzes Kleid in diese Feuersbrunst,
aus welcher sich, wie Schlangen, die erschrecken,
die nackten Arme wach und klappernd strecken.
Und dann: als würde ihr das Feuer knapp,
nimmt sie es ganz zusamm und wirft es ab
sehr herrisch, mit hochmütiger Gebärde
und schaut: da liegt es rasend auf der Erde
und flammt noch immer und ergibt sich nicht — .
Doch sieghaft, sicher und mit einem süssen
grüssenden Lächeln hebt sie ihr Gesicht
und stampft es aus mit kleinen festen Füssen.
SPANISH DANCER
As in one’s hand, a matchstick, white,
before it bursts to flame, to every side
extends its flashing tongues — : so begins in a circle
of close observers, hastily, bright and hot
her circular dance to spread out flashing.
And all at once it’s flame entire.
Her hair she kindles with her glance
and suddenly with daring art she turns
her total dress into this conflagration,
from out of which, like serpents which are frightened,
her naked arms extend, awake and rattling.
And then: as if the fire grew too scant for her,
she gathers it completely, throws it off
very imperiously, with a haughty gesture
and looks: there it lies raging on the ground
as yet still flame and it does not surrender — .
But she, triumphant, self-assured, and with a sweet
Saluting smile lifts up her face
And stamps it out with feet both small and firm.
Hermann Hesse
(1877-1962)
Hermann Hesse, one of the triumvirate of German Nobel Prize winners7, excels in a type of poetry which Germans call Gedankenlyrik (philosophical poetry). Though influenced by the philosophers of the German Romantic Movement, by Nietzsche, Goethe, and various other European philosophers, Hesse’s works also reflect his preoccupation with thoughts of China and India (where his parents had lived for many years and which he visited in 1911). In the poem Ich liebe Frauen these Oriental philosophies are clearly discernible. Man’s soul, as well as all matter, living or dead, is part of an enduring universe. Man has no more importance in this total cosmos than any other object and he should therefore “call with loving name even animal and stone,” to quote one of Hesse’s poems. The poet indicates this equality of man and matter in Ich liebe Frauen by deliberately reversing the order in which he speaks of women and cities when he repeats his theme in stanzas three and four.
The poem also suggests that Man continues to live by a process of transmigration of the soul, a concept which Hesse likewise borrows from Hindu philosophy. If one believes in this type of continued existence, the boundaries of time and space disappear; the poet can fall in love with the women and cities of the past — and of the future. Hesse envisions a future in which his ideals find fulfilment; where the beauty of his visions finds its equal in reality. This thought, expressed in the climactic last line, is emphasized by the repetition of the word Schönheit, which forces the reader to come to a complete stop before reading the pregnant last part of the line.
“ICH LIEBE FRAUEN”
Ich liebe Frauen, die vor tausend Jahren
Geliebt von Dichtern und besungen waren.
Ich liebe Städte, deren leere Mauern
Königsgeschlechter alter Zeit betrauern.
Ich liebe Städte, die erstehen werden,
Wenn niemand mehr von heute lebt auf Erden.
Ich liebe Frauen — schlanke, wunderbare,
Die ungeboren ruhn im Schoss der Jahre.
Sie werden einst mit ihrer sternebleichen
Schönheit der Schönheit meiner Träume gleichen.
“I LOVE WOMEN”
I love women who a thousand years ago
Were loved by poets and in songs extolled.
I love cities whose empty walls
Bemoan the ancient royal houses.
I love cities that will rise,
When no one of today is still alive on earth.
I love women — slender, wonderful,
Who rest unborn within the womb of time.
Some day they will with their starry-pale
Beauty equal the beauty of my dreams.
Franz Werfel
(1890-1945)
Franz Werfel, like his friend Rilke, was born in Prague. One of Europe’s leading authors, he also grained recognition in the United States, where he spent the last five years of his life. His novels The Forty Days of Musa Dagh and The Song of Bernadette became best sellers (the latter was also made into a successful film), while Broadway acclaimed his dramas The Eternal Road and Jacobowsky and the Colonel.8 It is no accident that Werfel attained more than national recognition. His attitude is always cosmopolitan; his themes of universal concern. Significantly, the first volume of his poetry, of which An den Leser is the poetic preamble, is entitled Weltfreund (Friend of the World). His poetry is thus in many ways the antithesis to that of Stefan George. Whereas George wished to write for the select few (and strongly disapproved of Werfel’s attitude), the latter wanted to write for all of mankind; while George’s poems are polished in form and use only the choicest vocabulary, Werfel, out of a distrust for both, frequently breaks the rhythm of his poems and includes the most common words of everyday usage. Thus in An den Leser he finds his inspiration in man’s daily toil and draws his images from a world familiar to everyone: a child’s popgun, a man bent over his ledger, a stoker firing a furnace. But the very unpretentiousness of theme, setting, and vocabulary lends a note of sincerity to Werfel’s expression of empathy with the common man and his lot and to his apostrophe to all of mankind as his brethren.
AN DEN LESER
Mein einziger Wunsch ist, Dir, oh Mensch verwandt zu seinl
Bist Du Neger, Akrobat, oder ruhst Du noch in tiefer
Mutterhut,
Klingt Dein Mädchenlied über den Hof, lenkst
Du Dein Floss im Abendschein,
Bist Du Soldat, oder Aviatiker voll Ausdauer und
Mut.
Trugst Du als Kind auch ein Gewehr in grüner
Armschlinge?
Wenn es losging, entflog ein angebundener Stöpsel dem
Lauf.
Mein Mensch, wenn ich Ermnerung singe,
Sei nicht hart und lose Dich mit mir in Tränen auf!
Denn ich habe alle Schicksale mitgemacht: Ich weiss
Das Gefühl von einsamen Harfenistinnen in Kurkapellen,
Das Gefühl von schüchternen Gouvernanten im fremden
Familienkreis,
Das Gefühl von Debutanten, die sich zitternd vor den
Souffleurkasten stellen.
Ich lebte im Walde, hatte ein Bahnhofsamt,
Sass gebeugt über Kassabücher, und bediente
ungeduldige Gäste.
Als Heizer stand ich vor Kesseln, das Antlitz grell
überflammt,
Und als Kuli ass ich Abfall und Küchenreste.
So gehöre ich Dir und allen!
/> Wolle mir, bitte, nicht widerstehn!
Oh, könnte es einmal geschehn,
Dass wir uns, Bruder, in die Arme fallen!
TO THE READER
It is my sole desire, oh Man, to be related to you!
Whether you be a Negro, an acrobat, or whether you still
repose deep in mother’s care,
Whether your girlish song sounds across the courtyard,
whether you steer your raft in the glow of evening,
Whether you are a soldier, or an aviator, full of endurance
and courage.
Did you too, as a child, carry a gun in a green
sling?
When it went off, a fastened cork flew from the
barrel.
Oh, Fellow-Man, when I sing of my memories,
Be not unbending, and dissolve with me in tears!
For in all fates have I participated. I know
The feeling of lonely lady-harpists in spa-orchestras,