Echo or reverberation

Echo or Widerschall (in the original spelling Echo or Wiederſchall ) is an elegiac echo poem by Martin Opitz , first published in 1624 in the Teutsche Pöemata Collection . It is one of the most frequently received echo poems of the Baroque and made the echo literature popular in the German-speaking world. In the collection of songs Des Knaben Wunderhorn edited by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim , there is a parody of the poem.

The lyrical text is divided into three parts: At the beginning the plaintiff describes his suffering, his retreat into the lonely nature and his longing for death. The middle part is characterized by the dialogue between the plaintiff and the echo and has the typical echo charm; In spite of the pressure arrangement, the nymph's answer is to be regarded as a separate verse, which can be achieved by a pause in speech preceding the echo. Finally, the speaking self, comforted by the answers it has received, leaves the wasteland again.

Excerpt

THIS place is completely covered with trees /
Since nothing but fear and shadows float /
    Since trauma is at hand /
    Since everything lies desolate and desolate / […]
Since no light is not recognized /
As that
    burns out of my heart / Throws me comfortable be /
    Since I complain from my pain /
From my pain and deepest suffering /
That I will now and part from me;
    But before the desired death
    relieves my need with joy /
Do I want to complain about my love /
And / whether it is already completely in vain / ask /
    Is there no one to comfort me /
    Because I am so sad? I.
Oh echo / will only you alone
comfort me away / and no other? a. [...]
    Is my suffering mislead /
    who should I thank with time? currently.
So it is now
necessary that I bury the apartment and catch the hour? wait.
    If I have to wait too long, will you
    help me? Be patient.
Now I have been relieved of many hardships / and
have found good consolation. […]
    You dreary place / you wished;
    I am full of joy for trawls /
For sweet darkness I look for the suns /
For tears a cool fountain:
    Which has given me such consolation /
    Is so that it cannot lie.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ August Langen: Dialogic game. Forms and changes of the alternating song in German poetry, 1600–1900. Heidelberg, 1966, pp. 48-51.
↑ Vanessa Dippel: On the representability of echo phenomena. Or: How to get from a simple repetition to chaos of the text structure. In: Claudia Albes, Christiane Frey (Ed.): Representability. On an aesthetic-philosophical problem around 1800. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg, 2003, pp. 257f.
↑ Hartmut Vollmar: Uniform theory of verse . Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg, 2008, p. 583.

[1] August Langen: Dialogic game. Forms and changes of the alternating song in German poetry, 1600–1900. Heidelberg, 1966, pp. 48-51.

[2] Vanessa Dippel: On the representability of echo phenomena. Or: How to get from a simple repetition to chaos of the text structure. In: Claudia Albes, Christiane Frey (Ed.): Representability. On an aesthetic-philosophical problem around 1800. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg, 2003, pp. 257f.

[3] Hartmut Vollmar: Uniform theory of verse . Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg, 2008, p. 583.