The Alps (poem)

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Die Alpen is a poem by Albrecht von Haller published in 1729 in 49 punch-like stanzas by 10 Alexandrians each with the sequence ababcdcdee.

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The reason for the poem was, according to Haller in his preface, an “ Alpine trip that I An. 1728 had done with the current Mr. Canonico and Professor Gessner in Zurich ”.

The poem has little focus on plot, but is a mixture of description and moral considerations. The latter also clearly shows the influence of the Baroque poets . Haller himself sees in this above all that of the poet Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein .

Haller is one of the early Enlightenmentists and, with his compatriots Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger, one of those scholars who intended to bring the beauty of nature closer to the educated public . In doing so, they started a new way of thinking. With increasing mastery of nature, one could open up more to its beauty and no longer just saw its unpredictability. Like some Baroque poets, many Enlightenment poets continued the anacreontics (shepherd poetry) invented in antiquity , in which nature is idealized and the background of a love affair. Traces of this can also be found in The Alps .

The poem was initially laid out in ten stanzas . Haller said he worked on the first version for a few months. Last but not least, the arrangement of the stanzas in ten lines as well as the increase required by the poetry of the time at the end of a stanza (cf. baroque sonnets ) seemed difficult to him . Since there aren't as many three or even fourfold end rhymes in German as e.g. B. in Italian and English, he decided on an independent punch form with only simple rhymes. The Haller punch has the two-line couplet at the end and the consistent alternation of female (sounding) and male (dull) rhymes in common with the classic punch (and Shakespeare's sonnet ).

Footnotes

Some of his footnotes refer to plants that Haller describes in his main botanical work, the Enumeratio methodica stirpium Helvetiae indigenarum . They correspond to the following Latin names after Linnaeus :

  • Seseli foliis acute multifidis umbella purpurea - Seseli ( Mountain fennel )
  • Gentiana floribus rotatis verticillatis - Gentiana lutea ( Yellow Gentian )
  • Gentiana foliis amplexicaulibus floris faucte barbata - Gentiana asclepiadea ( Swallowwort gentian )
  • Antirrhinum caule procumbente, foliis verticillatis, floribus congestis - Antirrhinum ( snapdragons )
  • Astrantia foliis quinquelobatis lobis tripartitis - Astrantia major ( large star umbels )
  • Ledum foliis glabris, flore tubuloso - Rhododendron ferrugineum ( rust-leaved alpine rose )
  • Ledum foliis glabris, ciliatis, ovatis, flore tubuloso - Rhododendron hirsutum ( Lashed Alpine Rose )
  • Silene acaulis - Silene acaulis ( Stalkless catchfly )

expenditure

  • An attempt at Swiss poems. … Stulta est clementia, cum tot ubique Vatibus occuras, perituræ Parcere Chartæ. Iuvenal. Bern, Bey Niclaus Emanuel Haller, 1732
  • Dr Albrecht Haller's attempt at Swiss poems. Second, increased and changed edition. Bern, by Niclaus Emanuel Haller, 1734

literature

  • Harold T. Betteridge: Albrecht v. Haller: The Alps. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1959 - Edited edition with quotations and reading apparatus, publisher no. 2072/5
  • Ann B. Shteir: Albrecht von Haller's Botany and "The Alps". In: Eighteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 10, No. 2. Winter 1976/1977, doi : 10.2307 / 2737553 , pp. 169-184.
  • Jattie Enklaar & Hans Ester: Switzerland between desire and reality. Rodopi, 1988, ISBN 90-6203-820-4 (background and interpretation)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Project Gutenberg-DE - Notes ( Memento from February 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Albrecht von Haller: Enumeratio methodica stirpium Helvetiae indigenarum . 1st edition. tape 1, 2 . Vandenhoeck, Göttingen 1742 ( bnf.fr [accessed March 1, 2019]).
  3. ↑ a b Ann B. Shteir: Albrecht von Haller's Botany and "The Alps". In: Eighteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 10, No. 2. Winter 1976/1977, doi : 10.2307 / 2737553