The ballad of the instinct for imitation
The ballad of the imitation instinct is the title of a poem by Erich Kästner , which first appeared on March 24, 1931 in the magazine Die Weltbühne and was then included in the collection of poetry Singing Between Stools .
The subject of the poem is a fatal execution played by children.
content
One day children decide to hang up little Fritz Naumann while playing in the backyard, just as they know from the newspaper about the execution of criminals. Fritzchen is declared a robber without further ado and his head is put through a noose. At first he doesn't fight back, only when they pull him up on the carpet rod does he start to struggle. But it's too late by then. He twitches a little more. A girl pinches his leg - as if for control. When the seven children involved realize that Fritzchen is dead, they run away, frightened, without calling anyone for help.
An older woman discovered him by chance and then the police came at 6:00 p.m. Fritzchen's mother collapses, but Karl, one of the boys involved, says they “just did it like the adults”.
background
In a note on the poem, Kästner referred to a press report from 1930, the events of which the poem is based. The newspaper report in Kästner's estate has not yet been found in the German Literature Archive in Marbach , so the press report on which it is based is still unknown.
interpretation
By mentioning the “instinct to imitate” in the title as well as through the first verse (“It's true: nothing works as quickly as poison!”), Kästner explains his topic: Children unreflectively reproduce the wrong behavior of adults. Their violence is learned, they appropriate it through role models.
For Stefan Neuhaus, in his ballad about the instinct to imitate , Kästner addressed the social upheavals of the Weimar Republic and the social coldness that resulted from them. Linked to this is a criticism of the reception of the media in which the children grotesquely imitate what the newspapers tell them to do. Andreas Drouve emphasized that Kästner's ballad only establishes the state of affairs without giving any impulse to change them. Kästner's worldview expresses helplessness and fatalism .
For Remo Hug, The Ballade of Imitation Instinct , in which the moral of the story is put first in the first stanza , was Kästner's darkest poem. The laconic tone of the Kästnerchen and the horror of the content contrast strongly with each other, the factuality and lack of indignation of the author increase the effect of the poem all the more haunting. Overall, the ballad does not fit the image of the author, who is often perceived as a child friend who glorified his youth. That is why it was often ignored in the secondary literature.
literature
- Karl Moritz: German ballads. Analysis for German lessons. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1972, ISBN 3-506-72814-8 .
- Rolf Köhlers: German ballads. From Matthias Claudius to Wolf Biermann. Insel-Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-458-17343-4 .
Web links
- Erich Kästner: The ballad of the instinct for imitation , text of the poem
Individual evidence
- ^ Reprint of the ballad about the imitation instinct in Die Weltbühne on March 24, 1931.
- ^ First edition: Erich Kästner: Singing between the chairs. DVA , Stuttgart / Berlin 1932.
- ↑ Explanation ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. to an inquiry at the German Literature Archive on rechtsgelehrter.de
- ^ Stefan Neuhaus: Realistic writing with Toller, Kästner and Tucholsky . In: Sabine Kyora, Stefan Neuhaus (eds.): Realistic writing in the Weimar Republic. Volume 5 of the writings of the Ernst Toller Society . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8260-3390-2 , p. 112.
- ↑ Andreas Drouve: Erich Kästner, moralist with a double bottom . Tectum, Marburg 1999, ISBN 978-3-8288-8038-2 , p. 67
- ↑ Remo Hug: Poems for Use. The poetry of Erich Kästner. Inspection, description, evaluation . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8260-3311-7 , p. 112.
