The beginning of the new century

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The beginning of the new century (also An *** ) is a poem by Friedrich Schiller at the beginning of the 19th century, probably written in 1801, which looks deeply shaken at the fatal consequences with which two great powers are fighting for world domination:

Noble friend! Where does peace open,
Where freedom finds a refuge?
The century is divorced by storm,
And the new opens with murder.

And the borders of all countries are shaking
. . .

Under the impression of the Peace of Lunéville , in which Napoleon forced France to cede all areas to the left of the Rhine from the still existing Holy Roman Empire , the 42-year-old Schiller marks, emphasized simply in the form - in nine four-line trochaic stanzas in Cross rhyme , alternately female and male - the already raging world war between the British Empire and France, which will spare no one:

Two mighty nations wrestle
For the world's sole possession,
To devour the freedom of all countries,
They swing the trident and the lightning.

The numerous metaphors , including ancient ones (like here the Poseidonian trident for sea ​​power , Zeus ' lightning for land power) are carefully kept in this bipolar word field, while the pictorial space expands with each stanza to the limitless ( the world lies before yours endlessly Look, | And shipping itself hardly measures it, | But on its immense back | There is no room for ten lucky ones. ). Only before this prospect of desperation does the resolute and much-quoted - and later since Ludwig Börne not infrequently attacked by political fanatics - the last stanza gain its realistically energetic sound:

In the sacred quiet rooms of the
heart you have to flee from the urge of life,
freedom is only in the realm of dreams,
and beauty only blossoms in song.

source

  • Jochen Golz (Ed.), Schiller. Complete works , Berlin edition, vol. I, poems , Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1980, p. 497 f.

Remarks

  1. ^ First print in the pocket book for women in 1801
  2. ↑ The "friend" mentioned in this prelude is not determined.
  3. ↑ So Jochen Golz in: Schiller. Complete Works , Vol. I, Berlin 1980, p. 836.
  4. ↑ 3rd stanza
  5. ↑ 8th stanza