Chevy Chase Verse
The Chevy Chase-verse is a 18th century by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim introduced in German poetry verse form . It consists of four cross- rhymed verses (rhyme scheme[abab]), with the first and third verses having four emphases , the second and fourth verses three. The number of unstressed syllables between the accents can vary (free lowering filling), but the meter tends to follow the iambic rhythm. All verses close with a masculine cadence . The stanza scheme is therefore in metric formula notation :
- [4ma 3mb 4ma 3mb]
The name refers to an English folk ballad written around 1550, The Ancient Ballad of Chevy-Chase, about a fateful hunt in the Cheviot Hills in Northumberland , which appeared as the opening poem of Percy's famous collection Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). However, the poem was translated by Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched as early as 1743 . In Johann Gottfried Herder's collection of folk songs , the translation appeared under the title Die Chevy-Jagd and with the remark “This piece is the famous oldest English ballad, which could not appear too smooth even in translation, should it be what it is, Remain somewhat. "The first stanza reads:
- The Pércy aús Northúmberlánd
- Take an oath to God,
- To hunt on Chýviaths Bérgen,
- Three days long ríngs around.
In 1749 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock had the poem later known under the title Heinrich der Vogler and entitled War Song to imitate the old song of the Chevy Chase hunt . The first three stanzas of the rhymeless poem are:
- The enemy is here! The battle begins!
- Woh run to victory 'herbey!
- The best man leads us
- All over the fatherland!
- Today he does not feel the disease
- That's where they carry him!
- Heil, Heinrich! heal you hero and man
- In the iron field
- His face glows with lust for honor,
- And herbey the victory!
- The noble helmet is already around him
- Splattered with enemy blood!
It is similarly martial in Gleim's Prussian War Songs (1758), where he takes up strophic form with the rhyme of the cross:
- You want, hundreds of men,
- Overcome us; Ha!
- Up, Fríedrich, áuf! With úns hinán!
- With úns, Viktóriá!
The distinctive rhythm and role models of Klopstock and Gleim meant that the stanza form was often used in the 19th and into the 20th century, especially for patriotic and military subjects, which is why it was referred to as the "grenadier song stanza". Here is the first stanza from Moritz Graf von Strachwitz's Das Herz von Douglas (1843):
- Count Doúglas, press the Helm into the Háar,
- Belt úm your light blue swear,
- Buckle up your hottest pair of Spórenpáar
- And saddle your fastest horse!
The stanza is not limited to martial-patriotic themes, but is also increasingly used in anacreontic poetry ( Christian Felix Weisse ), the songs of the Hainbund poets ( Hölty , Miller and Matthias Claudius ) and in the humorous ballad (zum Example with Gottfried Keller and Wilhelm Busch ).
In the 20th century it was only used occasionally, for example by Wolf Biermann and Peter Rühmkorf . There is a well-known example from Bertolt Brecht , who ironically picks up the "war song tone" in the legend of the dead soldier :
- And as the war in the fourth Lénz
- No view of Fríeden bót
- The Sóldat then gave the Kónseqúenz
- And die the Héldentód.
As an unironically “patriotic” stanza form, it only appears in poets such as Börries von Münchhausen and Agnes Miegel .
In English poetry, the Chevy Chase stanza corresponds to the ballad meter , although here mostly only the three-pointers are rhymed, the rhyme scheme[xaxa]is. If the verses are also regularly iambic , the stanza form is referred to as common measure , which also expresses its long tradition and widespread use.
As in the English poetry ( common octave ) there is also in the German the variant of a doubling of the stanza, which creates an eight-liner with the stanza scheme
- [4ma 3mb 4ma 3mb 4mc 3md 4mc 3md]
arises. Examples can be found in Goethe ( Der Fischer , 1779) and Fontane ( Gorm Grymme , 1864). The last stanza of Der Fischer reads:
- The water rushes, the water swells,
- Wet your bare feet;
- His heart grew so addicted to him
- As with the best regards.
- She spoke to him, she sang to him;
- Then it would have happened to him;
- She half pulled him, half sank down
- And would not be seen again.
And at Fontane:
- King Górm rules Dä́nemárk,
- He ruled the thirty years,
- His sense is firm, his hand is strong,
- To be white is only his hair,
- Only his bushy bráu'n are white,
- They would like men to speak,
- In Grímme he lives in there to shaun,
- Gorm Grýmme is his name drúm.
literature
- Ivo Braak : Poetics in a nutshell. Basic literary terms, an introduction . Gebrüder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 8th revised and expanded edition by Martin Neubauer, Berlin Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3-443-03109-1 , p. 126 f.
- Dieter Burdorf, Christoph Fasbender, Burkhard Moennighoff (Hrsg.): Metzler Lexicon literature. Terms and definitions. 3. Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-476-01612-6 , p. 121.
- Karl Nessler: History of the Ballad Chevy Chase . Palaestra row . Studies and texts from German and English philology, volume 112. Mayer & Müller, Berlin 1911. At the same time, dissertation at the University of Berlin 1911.
- Horst Joachim Frank : Handbook of the German strophic forms. 2nd Edition. Francke, Tübingen & Basel 1993, ISBN 3-7720-2221-9 , pp. 140-146.
- Otto Knörrich: Lexicon of lyrical forms (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 479). 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-47902-8 , p. 34f.
- Otto Paul, Ingeborg Glier : German metrics. 9th edition. Hueber, Munich 1974, p. 114.
- Christian Wagenknecht: German metric. A historical introduction. 5th edition Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-55731-6 , pp. 73, 75, 90.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Percy: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry . Warne & Co., London & New York 1887, p. 39 ff., Digitized .
- ^ Johann Gottfried Herder: Voices of the peoples in songs. Stuttgart 1975, p. 315
- ↑ Collection of mixed writings by the authors of the Bremen new contributions to the pleasure of the mind and wit. Vol. I, 5th piece. JG Dyck, Leipzig 1749.
- ^ Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock: Oden. Volume 1, Leipzig 1798, p. 74 .
- ^ Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim: Battle song before the meeting at Collin. In: Selected Works. Leipzig 1885, p. 34 .
- ^ Moritz von Strachwitz: Complete songs and ballads. Berlin 1912, p. 177
- ^ Theodor Fontane: Complete Works. Volume 20, Munich 1959-1975, p. 79