A spruce tree stands lonely

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The poem Ein Fichtenbaum stands lonely appeared in Heinrich Heine 's first volume of poems, Buch der Lieder, in the Lyrisches Intermezzo cycle . It was first published in 1823 in the volume Tragedies, along with a lyrical interlude in Berlin. Its creation is dated to the spring of 1822. The inaccessibility of two plants that symbolize the north (spruce) and the orient (palm) is depicted in a fairytale-like tone. The song was interpreted as love, nature or thought poetry.

text

A spruce tree stands lonely

A spruce tree stands lonely
In the north on bare heights.
Sleeps him; with a white blanket
, ice and snow cover him.

He dreams of a palm tree,
Far in the east,
lonely and silent mourning
on a burning rock wall.

Emergence

According to Sonja Gesse-Harm, Heine was inspired by the opera text Aucassin and Nicolette or: Love from the good old days according to the legend of a Provencal troubadour by the writer and doctor David Ferdinand Koreff . A palm tree is said to long for its lover in it.

shape

The poem consists of two stanzas with four verses each. There is half a rhyme of the cross.

interpretation

The portrayal of the two trees in their typical surroundings allows a reception as a natural poem. In the garden guide Wredow's Gartenfreund , which was published several times into the 20th century , Heinrich Gaerdt, director of the Borsig Gardens in Berlin-Moabit, said that in the first verse Heine described the "subarctic zone, the zone of pines and willows [...] across the Faroe Islands, Iceland "Norway, the rest of Sweden, Finland and Northern Russia". Hermann Jäger saw the Harz as a model, as the spruce is the characteristic tree of this area. The clash of reality and imagination also make it a dream poem.

reception

On October 9, 1844, Heine sent the poem to his niece Anna Embden in a letter.

It is possible that Joseph von Eichendorff was inspired by the poem to write his poem Winter Night from 1839 .

The poem received a wide reception. "Two millennia ago the palm wandered to the rough Germania, then it grew up in all the fantastic luxuriance of the local soil, and then it sang in its branches in real and good, understandable German", said the journalist Moritz Szeps and referred to Heines problematic identity. The historian Heinrich von Treitschke praised the work in his otherwise unflattering assessment of the poet: “The German spirit spoke from the small number of his really experienced love poems, from his spring songs, also from the song about the spruce tree and the palm tree, that for the Germans' longing for wanderings found meaningful words “He did not recognize the hidden message. Karl Kraus saw the poem close to the arts and crafts: “Anyone who has ever seen such an artful dummy in the shop window of a pastry chef or a columnist may get in the mood if he is an artist himself. But is that why its producer is one? ”In contrast, Kathrin Wittler makes it clear in her interpretation that Heine's use of ciphers anticipates modern poetry.

The first setting is by Carl Loewe . Franz Liszt set the poem to music around 1848. It was published in 1860. Other romantic settings come from Nikolai Andrejewitsch Rimski-Korsakow (op. 3 No. 1) and Edvard Grieg . A total of 146 settings should be available.

literature

  • Johann Jokl: About the impossibility of romantic love. Heinrich Heine's book of songs . Springer, Wiesbaden 1991, ISBN 978-3-663-01686-1 , pp. 147-149.
  • Kathrin Wittler: Oriental splendor. A German Jewish History of Literature (1750-1850) (= series of scientific treatises of the Leo Baeck Institute, vol. 79), ed. by Leo Baeck Institute London, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2019, pp. 457–500.
  • Wolf Wondratschek: What is the palm dreaming about . In: Frankfurter Anthologie. Poems and Interpretations, Vol. 8, ed. by Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Frankfurt am Main 1984, pp. 91-94.

Web links

Wikisource: A lonely spruce tree  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sonja Gesse-Harm: Between irony and sentiment. Heinrich Heine in the 19th century art song . Metzler, Stuttgart 2006, p. 451.
  2. ↑ Sonja Gesse-Harm: Between irony and sentiment. Heinrich Heine in the 19th century art song . Metzler, Stuttgart 2006, pp. 451-452.
  3. ^ Johann Christian Ludwig Wredow: Instructions for the education and treatment of the plants in the flower, vegetable and orchard, in living rooms, greenhouses and hotbeds, as well as the trees and ornamental shrubs in the open country , 15th edition. Rudolph Gaertner Verlag, Berlin 1878, P. 46
  4. ↑ Hermann Jäger: German trees and forests. Popular aesthetic representations from nature and natural history and geography of the tree world . Karl Scholtze, Leipzig 1877, p. 60.
  5. ↑ Monica Tempian: A dream, even strangely gruesome ... Romantic inheritance and experimental psychology in Heinrich Heine's dream poem . Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, p. 11.
  6. ↑ Joseph von Eichendorff: Gedichte (= Complete Works. Historical-Critical Edition), ed. by Harry Fröhlich u. a., Kohlhammer 1994, p. 576.
  7. ^ Heinrich von Treitschke: German history in the nineteenth century. Until the July Revolution . FW Hendel Verlag, Leipzig 1927, p. 695.
  8. ↑ Karl Kraus: Heine and the consequences. Writings on literature (= Janowitz Library, Vol. 21), ed. by Christian Wagenknecht and Eva Willms. Wallstein, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1423-8 , p. 90.
  9. ↑ Kathrin Wittler: Oriental shine. A German Jewish History of Literature (1750-1850) (= series of scientific treatises of the Leo Baeck Institute, vol. 79), ed. by Leo Baeck Institute London, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2019, p. 500.
  10. ↑ Sonja Gesse-Harm: Between irony and sentiment. Heinrich Heine in the 19th century art song . Metzler, Stuttgart 2006, p. 452.