The handstand on the Loreley
The handstand on the Loreley (based on a true story) is a ballad by Erich Kästner that appeared in 1932 in the volume of poems Singing between the chairs . The ironically written text has a regular, five-part iambus .
The ballad is a parody of Heinrich Heine's poem Die Lore-Ley , which in turn goes back to an older interpretation by Clemens Brentano . As with Brentano, the victim himself stands on the cliff and lets himself be seduced. Kästner describes the gymnastics movement , a movement that had already radicalized nationalistically in 1932 . While the Rhine has been canalized for a long time and the Loreley is portrayed more prosaically in Kästner's poem, the one who is blinded by the national myth allows himself to be carried away to sacrifice his life for something actually very banal.
background
Due to its - ostensibly - objective style, the poem is typical of Kästner, who is usually assigned to the New Objectivity . As with other poems (e.g. Christmas carol, dry-cleaned , The Ballad of Imitation Instinct ), Kästner avoids a raised index finger. Instead, he wants to achieve his effect in a sarcastic and sometimes cynical way: "A moment with two legs raised is not too dearly paid for with death". (Modification of a quote from Schiller's Don Karlos : "A moment, lived in paradise, is not too dearly atoned for with death.")
Kästner, a staunch opponent of National Socialism , criticizes the German hype of his time and the unreflective, exaggerated heroism. Due to its shape, the poem can also be seen as a parody of the Horst Wessel song .
The note “ Based on a true incident”, which Kästner added to the title The Handstand on the Loreley , is part of a tradition of frequent title additions in Kästner's early poetry. They mostly serve to prepare the reader for the poem and to facilitate his understanding of the text, entirely in the sense of easily accessible usage poetry . This poem is an exception in that, according to Michael Ansel, the "by no means seriously meant authenticity reference" is intended to encourage reflection about the content of the poem and its background, i.e. to raise questions rather than promote immediate understanding. Ansel refers to a contemporary historical reference that could have inspired Kästner to write the poem. According to Horst Johannes Tümmers, the Turngau Süd-Nassau built a hall and various gymnastic equipment on the Loreley rock at the beginning of the 1920s, and in fact a gymnast is said to have tried a handstand on the edge of the rock in high spirits. For Georg Kreisler , the point of the addition is primarily to underline the seriousness of the ballad despite its ironic and humorous tone.
Adaptations
The poem Der Handstand auf der Loreley was set to music by the German band Die Streuner on the album Fürsten in Lumpen und Loden in 2004 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Stefan Neuhaus: Outline of literary studies. UTB, 2009, ISBN 3825224775 .
- ↑ The handstand on the Loreley (Hölderlin Society)
- ↑ Michael Ansel: Annotated Poetry. The function of the title additions and notes in Kästner's poetry volumes of the Weimar Republic . In: Silke Becker, Sven Hanuschek (ed.): Erich Kästner and the modern age . Tectum, Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 978-3-8288-6700-0 , pp. 102-103
- ↑ Georg Kreisler : Screams of fear from all steamers . In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Ed.): Frankfurter Anthologie Volume 15. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 173. After: Markus Möwis: Falsches Heldentum. Erich Kästner, Horst Wessel and “The handstand on the Loreley” . Student thesis ( PDF file ).