The walk to the country. To Landauer
The walk to the country. An Landauer is an elegy by Friedrich Hölderlin . Although unfinished, it has become famous, if only because of the incoming call that reflects the longing of many people: “Come! in the open, friend! ”A“ wonderful country elegy ”, a“ completed elegy fragment ”wrote a feature section dedicated to“ country life ”in 2014.
Origin and tradition
After the end of his work as private tutor with Jakob Friedrich Gontard-Borkenstein (1764-1843) in Frankfurt am Main in September 1798, Hölderlin initially stayed in nearby Homburg . In mid-June 1800 he emigrated to Stuttgart via Nürtingen , where his mother and sister lived. There he lived with the educated, liberal cloth merchant Christian Landauer (1769-1845). He also dedicated the rhyming song An Landauer to him - for his birthday on December 11th, 1800 : “Be happy! You have chosen the good lot, / For a soul has been deeply and faithfully to you; / You were born to be friends with friends / This is what we will witness to you on the feast. "
In January 1801, Hölderlin took on another private tutor position with the linen manufacturer Anton von Gonzenbach (1748–1819) in Hauptwil , Switzerland. In February he wrote to Landauer: “My dearer! <...> Dealing with you and the other friends has given me real gain, which I have always missed and which I will try to make use of. I have only learned a real calm with you, with which one can rely on the bottom of the soul in people after one has got to know them through genuine signs. This is how you keep vester and more faithfully alive and among those who concern you. <...> That is exactly why I will never forget you, and I will be reminded of you in the best hours that I live here in company. ”He returned to Nürtingen at the beginning of April 1801.
In the relatively fortunate Stuttgart episode 1800 or - according to Dietrich Sattler and others - during a further stay in Stuttgart in April or May 1801, The Walk to the Country was created. The tradition consists of several manuscripts, including, shown here:
- a fair copy of verses 1 to 34 with an immediately following draft of verses 35 to 40 and keywords for a continuation (1) , (2) and
- the draft of a sequel. (3)
The headline The walk to the country. An Landauer is on a draft of the Elegy Brod and Wine , separate from the drafts but assignable to them . The fragment was first printed in 1826 in the collective edition of "Poems" organized by Ludwig Uhland and Gustav Schwab .
Unless otherwise stated, Hölderlin is cited here from the historical-critical Stuttgart edition of his works prepared by Friedrich Beissner , Adolf Beck and Ute Oelmann (* 1949) . The text part in volume 2, 1 only contains the "completed" verses 1 to 40, the additional keywords and verses are printed in the commentary part volume 2, 2. Jochen Schmidt's "reading edition" proceeds in the same way , "modernizing" the orthography. The “constituted text” of the historical-critical Frankfurt edition by Dietrich Sattler and the text part of the “reading edition” by Michael Knaupp, on the other hand, append the keywords and additional verses to the “completed” verses 1 to 40 directly. Knaupp overwrites the poem instead of “The walk in the country. An Landauer ”with“ Das Gasthaus. An Landauer ”, a title that is reconstructed from traces at the tear-off point of the fair copy (1) .
Text and interpretation
In Hölderlin's elegies, since - with Der Gang im Land. At Landauer's roughly simultaneous - second version of Der Wanderer , three distiches each, one unit, “triad”, and three triads each, ie 18 verses, one stanza. Going to the country would, it is assumed, have four or six stanzas. The second stanza only counts 16 verses; Holderlin apparently forgot to transfer a distich following verse 22 into the fair copy (1) , (2) . Only three distiches of the third stanza have been completed (up to verse 40).
The walk to the country. Come to Landauer ! open, friend! to be sure, a little shines today only down and the sky encloses us closely. Neither the mountains have risen nor the forest's peaks as desired and the air rests empty with song. 5 It's gloomy today, the corridors and streets are slumbering and it almost seems to me that it is as if in leaden time. Nevertheless, the wish succeeds, those who believe in right do not doubt one hour and the day remains consecrated to pleasure. Because what we have won from heaven is not a little pleased, 10 If he refuses and yet allows the children to last. Only that such speeches, and also the step and the effort, are worth profit and, quite truly, the delightful. That is why I even hope that when we begin what we want and first loosen our tongues, 15 And found the word, and the heart has risen, And from a drunken forehead a higher reflection springs, with which ours at the same time the blossom of heaven begin, And to be open to the open glance, the shining one. Because it is not powerful, but it belongs to life, 20 What we want, and it seems both scary and joyful. But the sea-bringing swallows still come before the summer comes. Namely the ground up at Christmas with good speech, Where the house is built for the guests by the sensible host; 25 That they taste and see the most beautiful things, the abundance of the land, That, as the heart desires, openly, that the spirit may be crowned with feast, dance and song and Stutgard's joy, That is why today we want to go up the hill with wishes. May someone better still speak to the philanthropic Mailicht 30 About it, explained by even viable guests, Or, as usual, if others like it, because the custom is old, And the gods look at us smiling so often, May the carpenter from the summit of the Roof to say, We, as well as we have succeeded, have done ours. 35 But the place is beautiful when the valley rises on holidays in spring , when pastures green with the Nekar and forest and all the green trees countless, blooming white, billow in the swaying air.But with clouds covered with clouds down the mountains, the vine 40 dawns and grows and warms under the sunny scent.
The poem can be read as a reproduction of what has been concretely experienced (more precisely as a fiction of what has been concretely experienced) as well as a vision of human history.
Concrete experience
The concrete is modest enough. "It's cloudy" in the Stuttgart basin. Low clouds cover mountains and forests. "Neither the mountains nor the forest / peaks have risen as desired and the air rests empty of song," writes Hölderlin instead of "Neither the mountains nor the forest peaks have risen as desired and the air rests empty of song" - an example of his style the "hard fortune". To break into the open, the poet calls on his friend. He calls him like "Stutgard" and the "Nekar" by name. Justinus Kerner criticized such "specialties <...> eg the name Stuttgart" in a note at the top of the first page of the fair copy (1) . Beissner replies that the peculiar and especially Hölderlinian of this language with its confidential approach to friends lies “in the fact that it does not slide down into a chatty, conversational tone, but remains clear and meaningful in itself and touches on the 'infinite' without the 'limited' to have to suppress the finite and superficial, <...>. "
The second contrasts the narrowness and oppressiveness of the first triad with its “nevertheless”. However, the optative “the day is consecrated to pleasure” signals a doubt as to whether the opening will succeed. Confidence and skepticism sound out of every distich. With the third triad, the rhythm changes. Forms to the end of the second triad of each couplet "by way latin" its own, with a point of a closed set, so biases the third - "and which is actually Greek form" - a single set his bow of all six verses. “A single sentence, connected by a four-fold increasing 'and', swells over six verses to the final climax in which the 'opening' of the beginning reappears - now mentioned twice to clarify the decisive constellation. The opening of the sky occurs only for the 'open view'. "
After the enthusiasm of the end of the first stanza, the second leads back to the simpler tone of the beginning. “Because it is not powerful, but it belongs to life / what we want, and it seems dangerous and joyful at the same time.” Nothing powerful is the concrete-biographical, the decent, the sociable everyday life, but it belongs to life. The core of the second stanza expresses for the first time the plan, “What we want”, namely the consecration of the ground, perhaps the laying of the foundation stone , for an inn on a vineyard near Stuttgart. Landauer may, but does not have to be, the client. Again, three distiches form a single sentence (verses 23-28), in which "the gain" (verse 12), "the steps and the effort" (verse 11) is sung about: In the future, guests should socialize here at meal, dance and song Watch "the most beautiful, the abundance of the land". Next May, at the topping-out ceremony, the sunlight will speak a blessing to the finished inn, even without words, "by itself" for the guests to understand; or the carpenter will do the carpenter's saying according to the old "custom" (verse 31) . Then the gods will look down with a smile and sympathy.
In the verses, which should perhaps become the first triad of the third stanza, the view widens into the spring-like Neckar valley. What had not yet “risen” at the gloomy beginning (verse 3) has now “risen” (verse 36), valley, pastures, the forest, the green or white blossoming trees. The harmony of the landscape corresponds to the social harmony of the rural festival, and both correspond to the poetic form:
35 But beautiful is the place where in F eggs meet the F rühlings Situated Come the valley, where the Nekar down W eiden flourish and W ald and all the verdant trees Countless, flourishing know w all in w iegender air But with W ölkchen b edekt to B ergen down the W einstok 40 D ämmert and grows and he w armt under d em sunny D runs.
" Polysyndeton , alliterations , assonances and rhythmization create the harmony of the social and landscape situation of which the text speaks, in an aesthetically tangible way." The poetic perfection of verses 35 to 40 makes Wolfgang Braungart doubt whether the elegy is really a fragment. He calls the verse "the great final picture of the elegy".
vision
If the elegy is an expression or a fiction of what is individually and concretely experienced, it is entirely sensually vivid, but like Hölderlin's work in general, it also has a religious and human historical dimension. This sphere is called up by the mentioning of "heaven" three times in the first stanza, once in each of the three distich triads. It is invoked by Holderlin's indefinite “ numinous neuter ”: “into the open”, “a little”, “the delightful”, “the desired”, “a better” (verse 29). The word “those who believe in right” (verse 7) expresses an open reference to religion.
If meteorology - the level of concrete experience - makes the beginning of the walk narrow and cloudy, it is at the same time - the level of vision - a symbol of Hölderlin's historical epoch, to which he diagnoses the “leaden time”. This expression, already in use in the 17th century for a time of malice and oppression, takes up the mythical world ages of antiquity and the world ages of the prophet Daniel (Dan 2,31-45 EU ). It has become the title of a film, Die Bleierne Zeit , and a household word. For Hölderlin, the leaden time is a time of disintegration between divinely seen nature and man-made culture, which in antiquity once formed a loving unit. Holderlin described this pathology of his time in the "anxious dream" of the approximately simultaneous hexameter hymn The Archipelagus :
But woe! it walks in night, it dwells like in orcus,
without divine our race.
They are forged by their own doing , and in the roaring workshop
everyone just hears and the savages work a lot
With a huge arm, restless, but always and always
sterile, like the furies, the toil of the poor remains.
The "open" of the first verse means biographically better weather for a walk. The fanfare-like “Come! into the open! ”but like the friend Landauer also calls on the reader. "Open" is one of Hölderlin's favorite words, used similarly in the elegy Brod and Wein : "Come so that we can see what is open." It evokes the idea of an open heaven: "You will see heaven open" ( Jn 1 : 51 EU )). The reader should be open to a return of harmony between nature and the human world. In the Archipelagus, Hölderlin's expectation of salvation follows the pathology of the present:
Until, awakened from the anxious dream, the soul wakes up in man
, youthfully happy, and the love is blessed with Othem
Again, as often before, with
Hella's blossoming children,
the spirit of nature, wandering afar , wafts again in new times and above freer foreheads
The god appears silently in golden clouds.
Then, with verses 17 and 18 of The Walk in the Country. To Landauer :
Begin with ours at the same time the bloom of heaven,
And the shining light be open to the open view.
If one follows the late dating of the journey to the country to 1801, then the Peace of Lunéville , which was concluded on February 9, at the time of the creation of Hölderlin, was particularly hopeful. On February 23rd he wrote to his sister from Switzerland: “I am writing to you and our dear ones on the day when everything among us is full of the news of the agreed peace and, since you know me, I do not need you to say how I feel about it. <...> I think the world will be very good now. I may look at the near or long past time, everything seems to me to be rare days, the days of beautiful humanity, the days of sure, fearless kindness, and to bring about attitudes that are just as serene as holy, and just as sublime as simple. "
The “openness” of the poem means a “(new) openness of all relationships to life”, a “(new) presence of the divine in the world after interim distance from the gods”, “a comprehensive opening of nature and heaven”, a transformation of the world for the better. Holderlin leaves it to the reader to concretise the vision politically, theologically or philosophically. “When reading individually, you can imagine a lot.” He just wants to make the reader receptive to a return of the gods.
Gods in the inn?
But ask me, what are gods doing in the inn?
The answers, they are, like lovers, solemnly seelig
If they live a bride only alone in the temples
'is,' But so long called a Smaller even after those 5 they are never, ever the Celestial us because either it prevails its highest blind then obeys something else Or they live in a quarrel that doesn't stay or it disappears As with a drunk meal, everything <υ | - υ υ | -> 10 This also destroys itself, even gods are bound by a fateful hall Because the living law is all bound by life's law.
Of his continuation notes, Holderlin only formulated the above into verses. “But ask me one thing, what are gods supposed to do in the inn?” Sounds almost strange to the impartial. Does Holderlin doubt whether he can adequately shape his vision of the history of the cosmos and humanity, for which he otherwise went back to ancient Greece, in the image of a walk? Is the projection of an ancient celebration of gods on a ground consecration and a topping-out ceremony in his modern fatherland questionable? Perhaps this doubt is the reason why the poem was left unfinished. Holderlin wrote across the left margin of the page with the continuation (3) :
I want to sing easy singing, but I never succeed,
because <es> my happiness never makes speech <easy> for me.
The distich expresses resignation. But the last verses (10 and 11 of the draft continuation) confirm Holderlin's optimism in the history of salvation when they proclaim comfortingly: "Even gods are bound by a fateful room / For the living are all bound by the law of life."
literature
- Friedrich Beissner: Interpretation of the elegiac fragment "The walk to the country". In: Paul Kluckhohn (Ed.): Hölderlin: Commemorative publication on the 100th anniversary of his death; June 7, 1943. Mohr Siebeck Verlag , Tübingen 1953, pp. 247-266.
- Wolfgang Braungart : “Come on! into the open, friend! ”On the relationship between ritual and literature, life-world commitment and textual openness. Using the example of Hölderlin's elegy “The walk in the country. To Landauer ”. In: Iris Denneler (Ed.): The formula and the unmistakable. Interdisciplinary contributions to topic, rhetoric and individuality. Peter Lang AG , Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / Bruxelles / New York / Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-631-35240-9 , pp. 96–114.
- Jochen Hieber: Friedrich Hölderlin: Going to the country. The completed fragment. In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Ed.): Frankfurter Anthologie . Volume 19, 1996, ISBN 3-458-16791-9 , pp. 57-61.
- Friedrich Hölderlin: Complete Works. Big Stuttgart edition . Edited by Friedrich Beissner, Adolf Beck and Ute Oelmann. Kohlhammer Verlag , Stuttgart 1946 to 1985.
- Friedrich Hölderlin: Complete Works . Historical-critical edition in 20 volumes and 3 supplements. Published by DE Sattler . Frankfurt edition. Stroemfeld / Roter Stern publishing house , Frankfurt am Main and Basel 1975–2008.
- Friedrich Hölderlin: Poems. Edited by Jochen Schmidt. Deutscher Klassiker Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-618-60810-1 .
- Friedrich Hölderlin: All works and letters. Edited by Michael Knaupp. Carl Hanser Verlag , Munich 1992 to 1993.
- Manfred Koch : The way into the poem - the way of the poem. An introduction to Hölderlin's poetry using the example of the elegy 'The Walk to the Country'. In: Christophe Fricker, Bruno Pieger (Eds.): Friedrich Hölderlin. To his poetry. Castrum Peregrini Presse, Amsterdam 2005. ISSN 0008-7556 , pp. 9-34.
- Manfred Koch: Hölderlin's Wuerttemberg Manifesto. The unfinished elegy The walk to the country . Ulrich Keicher Verlag , 2006, ISBN 3-938743-16-6 . The essay is essentially identical to the above.
- Angelika Schmitz: "I want to sing easier singing." Considerations on the failure of the fragmentary elegy "The Walk to the Country". In: Uwe Beyer (Ed.): New ways to Hölderlin. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 1994, ISBN 3-88479-692-5 , pp. 269–322.
Individual evidence
- ↑ see Braungart 1999, p. 110.
- ↑ Jochen Hieber Come! open, friend! What ends, what begins. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . November 24, 2014, p. 11.
- ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 2, 1, p. 114.
- ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 6, 1, p. 415.
- ↑ Frankfurt edition, Volume 7, p. 276.
- ↑ Schmitz 1994, pp. 277-282.
- ↑ Beissner 1943.
- ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 2, 2, p. 583.
- ↑ Norbert von Hellingrath coined the term "hard coincidence", from ἁρμονία αὐστηρά. The style is characterized by the hardness of the joints between the linguistic elements, more irrational and less tied than in conventional prose. In the sentence structure there is anacoluthe , words placed without a predicate , soon sprawling periods that begin two or three times and then suddenly break off, always full of sudden changes in the construction. Friedrich Norbert von Hellingrath: Pindar transmissions from Hölderlin. Prolegomena to a first edition. Breitkopf & Härtel , Leipzig 1910.
- ↑ Justinus Kerner wrote the note after the Stuttgart edition . According to the Frankfurt edition, Volume 7, p. 276, it comes from Gustav Schwab.
- ↑ Holderlin often anchors the poems of this time in his real life. Three completed elegies at about the same time also bear dedications, namely Stutgard. To Siegfried Schmidt - meant is the poet friend Siegfried Schmidt (1774-1859) of the same age; Bread and wine . To Heinze - meaning the 24 years older, admired Wilhelm Heinse ; and homecoming. To the relatives , created soon after returning from Hauptwil. Siegfried Schmidt is even addressed in the text of his poem: “To name that, my Schmidt! Neither of us suffices. ”Geographical information is given in the poem Der Winkel von Hahrdt and the draft hymns Your safe-built Alps ... in which the Black Forest, Stuttgart, Tübingen, the Weinsteige near Stuttgart, the Spitzberg near Tübingen and“ Tills Thal ”near Tübingen signpost a hike at home.
- ↑ Beissner 1953, p. 255.
- ↑ Beissner 1953, p. 258.
- ↑ Koch 2005, p. 26.
- ↑ Baumgart 1999, p. 111.
- ↑ Koch 2005, p 17: "Almost all became famous gnomic formulas of Hölderlin have this numinous neuter: A riddle is Reinentsprungenes '."
-
↑ Examples:
- "We live / the truth of saying / in an eysern, yes pale time / or rather in a merciless tyrannical bloody age [...]". Bag cutter, thief histories. Other part . Translated from French [by François de Calvi] into German. Frankfurt, Johann Beyer 1641. p. 296 books.google .
- “These hundred years are to be observed [...] before a pale time because of the sterility to all good and overflowing ugliness of all evil.” Solomon Glassius : Selecta scripturae divinae Mosaicae: sweet core and extract. Nürnberg, Endter 1657. p. 593 books.google .
- ↑ Christiane Peitz: The lead cap of silence . Interview with Margarethe von Trotta . Der Tagesspiegel from April 28, 2007 (accessed on January 23, 2016)
- ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 2, 1, p. 110.
- ↑ Schmidt 1992, p. 712.
- ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 2, 1, p. 91.
- ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 6, 1, pp. 413–414.
- ↑ Schmitz 1994, p. 290.
- ↑ Koch 2005, p. 18.
- ↑ Braungart 1999, p. 108.
- ↑ Beissner 1953, p. 264.
- ↑ Beissner 1953, p. 265.