The gods in exile

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Magazine version in the Blätter für Literary Entertainment , 1853

The Gods in Exile is a short story by Heinrich Heine published in 1853 . The topic revolves around what became of the old deposed pagan deities - the "gods in exile". The text cannot be clearly assigned to any genre and alternates between personal observation and pure invention. There are parts of essays , anecdotes , sagas and lies . It appears relatively seldom in anthologies and is one of the lesser-known works of Heine. The French version of the work was also published in 1853 as Les Dieux en Exil in Revue des Deux Mondes , the German version in the Blätter für literary entertainment as Die Götter im Elend .

content

The "essay" begins with:

In my earliest writings I discussed the idea from which the following communications arose. I am again talking about the transformation into demons which the Greco-Roman deities suffered when Christianity came to dominate the world.

The old deities such as Jupiter , Mars , Hermes , Bacchus or Apollo eke out a secluded existence or go about their old activities masked in Christianity. Apollo is said to have become a shepherd again because he once (also) grazed Admetos' cows , but he has given himself away through his beautiful singing and making music. He was executed, but then disappeared from the grave. On the East Frisian coast, Hermes, disguised as a merchant, transports souls to the afterlife. Heine reports of various people who spoke to gods. The long Schimmelpfennig, nephew of the executioner from Munster, met the god of war Mars, who was now a mercenary, in Bologna and Bacchus, disguised as a monk , appeared to a Tyrolean ferryman .

Not all deities should have exiled or hid:

... despite the Christian anathema , Pluto's position remained essentially the same. He, the god of the underworld, and his brother Neptunus, the god of the sea, these two did not emigrate like other gods, and even after the victory of Christianity they remained in their domains, in their element.

From the whale hunter Niels Andersen, born in Drontheim in Norway , the narrator learned more about Jupiter, the father of the gods: Russian and Greek sailors are said to have discovered a strange old man with a goat and an eagle as pets on an arctic island. After the Greek sailors reported about their homeland in which only ruins heralded the time of the gods, the old man let out a sigh that betrayed the most terrible pain [...] The big bird screeched terribly, spread its enormous wings and threatened them Strangers with claws and bills. The old goat, however, licked her master's hands and grumbled sadly and soothingly. An accompanying scholar identified this aged figure as Jupiter according to the reports. The bird is his formerly lightning-bearing eagle and the goat Jupiter's wet nurse Amaltheia , (here: Althea ) who in turn nourishes him with her milk.

At the beginning of the last paragraph, Heine finally remarks:

I have no doubt that there are people who gleefully feast on such a spectacle. These people are perhaps the descendants of those unfortunate oxen who were slaughtered as hecatombs on the altars of Jupiter - rejoice, the blood of your ancestors has been avenged, those poor victims of superstition! But for us, who are not caught by any hereditary resentment, we are shaken by the sight of fallen greatness, and we devote our most pious pity to it.

interpretation

The malicious remark at the beginning of the last paragraph can perhaps be understood with the confrontation of Heine, who is enthusiastic about Hellenistic ideals, with Nazarism. In a dispute with Ludwig Börne he writes:

I say Nazarene in order to use neither the expression 'Jewish' nor 'Christian', although both expressions are synonymous for me and are not used by me to denote a belief but to denote a nature. (...) ... all people are either Jews or Hellenes, people with ascetic, image-hostile, spiritual-addicted instincts, or people of a livelier, more unfolding and realistic nature.

And in the essay on the history of religion and philosophy in Germany :

You demand simple attire, celibate manners and unseasoned pleasures; we, on the other hand, demand nectar and ambrosia, purple cloaks, precious fragrances, lust and splendor, laughing nymph dance, music and comedies - don't be angry about this, you virtuous republicans.

reception

In his 1905 novel Professor Unrat , later filmed as The Blue Angel , Heinrich Mann had the “Lohmann pupil” secretly read the “Gods in Exile” under the bench during class: Lohmann gave up waiting and opened the “ Gods in Exile ”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter von Matt (ed.) Nice stories! German storytelling from 2 centuries . –Stuttgart Philipp Reclam jun. 1992 p. 19 (introduction) ISBN 3-15-028840-1
  2. ↑ heinrich-heine-denkmal.de. Viewed on May 29, 2010
  3. ↑ Nice stories! P. 143
  4. ↑ Nice stories! P. 162f
  5. ↑ Nice stories! P. 172
  6. ↑ Nice stories! P. 173
  7. ↑ a b Carmela Lorella Ausilia Bosco - The terribly beautiful Gorgon head of the classical. Deutsche Antikebilder (1755-1875) ( Inaugural dissertation ; PDF; 563 kB) p. 285
  8. ↑ Heinrich Mann - Professor Unrat or The End of a Tyrant . Fischer Taschenbuch 2002 p. 85 ISBN 978-3-596-25934-2

literature

  • Heinrich Heine: Historical-critical complete edition of the works, Volume 9: Elementary spirits, The Goddess Diana, The Doctor Faust, The Gods in Exile. Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe 1987, ISBN 3-455-03009-2

Secondary literature

  • Renate Schlesier : The big masked ball. Heine's exiled gods , in: The Jerusalem Heine Symposium. Memory, myth, modernity , ed. by Klaus Briegleb , Itta Shedletzky. Hamburg 2001, pp. 93-110.
  • Ralph Häfner: Gods in Exile. Early modern understanding of poetry in the field of tension between Christian apologetics and philological criticism (approx. 1590-1736) (= early modern times. Studies and documents on German literature and culture in a European context; vol. 80), Tübingen: Niemeyer 2003, XXXI + 716 S., ISBN 978-3-484-36580-3

Web links

Wikisource: The Gods in Exile  - Sources and full texts