The singers curse
The singer's curse is a ballad by the poet Ludwig Uhland from 1814.
shape
The ballad has sixteen stanzas of four verses each . It has a pair of rhymes (aabb) throughout , which creates a certain simplicity and catchiness. By combining the genres drama , lyric and epic , Des Sängers Fluch can be clearly recognized as a ballad. For example, it includes dialogues that drive the plot forward. The ballad consists of alexandrines (six-part iambs) each with an additional unstressed syllable before the caesura to avoid monotony and with a male cadence .
content
The ballad Des Singer Fluch is about two singers who try to touch the heart of a cruel king who kills one of them in the process. The survivor then places a curse on the king .
In the first stanza the kingdom of the king, which stands in clear contrast to the ruler himself, is described: The land is beautiful, the regent's castle "so lofty and noble" . (V. 1) The king is opposed to this as "dark" . (Verse 2, v. 6) In the next verse, the "noble singers" (v. 9) appear - an old minstrel and his younger pupil. They meet the royal couple - "the queen sweet and mild" , her husband cruel and gloomy. (Verse 4, v. 20) In verses 5 and 6 the performance of the singers is described. But do not touch the king, but even his courtiers and warriors and above all the queen - she throws the singers a rose. The angry king throws his sword and hits the young man. He dies. His master pronounces the curse. (Verses 9 to 11)
The curse itself increases over three stanzas. He hits the proud castle, in which music and singing are supposed to fall silent, then the fragrant gardens, they are supposed to wither, and finally the king himself, who despite all efforts “for wreaths of bloody fame” is to be forgotten.
Then the ballad jumps into the future: the curse has been fulfilled. (Verses 15 and 16) The castle is in ruins: “Another high column is evidence of vanished splendor; | Even this, already broken, can fall overnight. ” The gardens are a waterless wasteland. But nobody knows the king anymore. The conclusion is often quoted: “Lost and forgotten! | that is the singer's curse. "
interpretation
In the ballad, the singer's power surpasses that of the king at the end. It is true that it can rule cruelly and even kill. But he is mortal, and only the singer has the key to eternal glory. The singer can preserve the memory of the king, report on his deeds and thus make him immortal in the memory of the people. If he does not perpetuate, he will suffer a second death. So the singer can take terrible revenge.
This power of the singer alludes to medieval circumstances. There, too, have propelled minstrels by price verses made known the glory of a prince in the world or a prince by scolding verses mocked. Ultimately, it is an unspoken reference back to Homer's effect on antiquity and up to Uhland's time.
The democrat Uhland is also shaped by his own presence, when the poet was considered the creative (and here destructive) embodiment of the German people subjugated by the princes. His song is understood as holy and lasting, because the voice of the people. In 1807 Johann Gottfried Herder's pioneering Voices of the Nations appeared in songs .
Classification in literary history
The allusion just to the Middle Ages is typical of the era of romanticism that like there and to resorting to the old German time. Even magical elements appear here again and again, recognizable in the curse of the ancients themselves, which indeed is also true. The exuberance of feeling typical of the epoch is also given here in the queen's enthusiasm and the king's murderous anger. Nature, namely the state of the kingdom, is considered to be closely linked to its ruler: the land decays along with its fame. It is also typical of the romance that other art forms than the literature are discussed in the literature. It's the music here .
effect
The ballad became the political expression of civil protest into the Vormärz inside. In 1852 The singer's curse of Robert Schumann 139 as op. Set to music for soloists, chorus and orchestra.
It was released by the band Reifrock under the same name as a song on the 1981 album Unter einer Hut on LP. It was also set to music as a song in 2008 on the album Sagas by the band Equilibrium of the same name. As a minstrel curse , it appeared in abbreviated form on the CD "Verehrt und Spit" by the band In Extremo .
The band Falkenstein also used the ballad as a template.
The poem has also been parodied frequently. In the customer newspaper Bruder Straubinger , two parodies appeared around 1906, namely The customer's curse by Carl Salm in the 1st year (at that time the title of the magazine was still Der arme Teufel ) and The singer's curse anonymously in the 2nd year, No. 2 ., End of October 1906. Hugo E. Luedecke collected the erotic version Der Laura Fluch for the fourth accessory of the Anthropophyteia .
output
- Ludwig Uhland: Der Spielmannsfluch , in: Hartmut Laufhütte (ed.): German ballads . Reclam, Stuttgart 2000.
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Fritz Martini 2007, p. 327.
- ↑ See Albrecht Weber 1964, p. 251 ff.
literature
- Fritz Martini, powerlessness and power of song. On Ludwig Uhland's ballad “Des Sängers Fluch” , in: Wulf Segebrecht (ed.), Poems and Interpretations , Vol. 3, “Classic and Romantic”, Reclam, Stuttgart 2007
- Johannes Proelß : The singer's curse: to illuminate Schiller's part in Uhland's ballad. In: Statutory report / Schwäbischer Schillerverein Marbach / Stuttgart, Volume 10, 1905, pages 46–57.
- Horst Dieter Schlosser, Dtv Atlas German Literature , dtv, Munich 2002
- Albrecht Weber, Ludwig Uhland. The singer's curse , in: Rupert Hirschenauer / Albrecht Weber, ways to poem , vol. 2, ways to ballad , Munich / Zurich 1964.
