Ghazel

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The Ghas e l or the Ghasele (also Gasel , Ghasal , Ghazal ; from Arabic غزل, DMG ġazal = web, words of love) is a lyrical form of poetry that was created on the Arabian Peninsula in pre-Islamic times. The bloom of the Ghazel seal is in the Persian- speaking area from around the 13th / 14th centuries. Century reached (e.g. Rūmī , Ḥāfiẓ ) and extends under the Mughal rulers from the 16th century to over the Indian subcontinent. It has also been used as a rhyme scheme in German-language poetry since the 19th century .

A ghazel consists of a sequence of two verses ( beit ), the second verse of which always has the rhyme used in the first verse:

Rhyme scheme: [aa xa xa xa xa xa]

In the original form of the Ghazel, each of these couples has its own name and has a special, strictly defined function.

origin

The term can be traced back to classical Arabic poetry. In Arabic , ghazal, like taghazzul , denotes the erotic speech in poetry, the poet's address to the absent lover. As a terminus technicus, ghazal was first used in Persian poetry; Since about the 13th century it has been used to describe a poem form with pair rhymes of the first two half-verses and continuous rhyme of all the entire verses, just as this was then adopted into German. The poem form was adopted from Persian in the following centuries into Turkish ( Ottoman , Chaghatai ), Kurdish , Pashto , Urdu , numerous other languages ​​of India and a few other languages.

Under the formative influence of the great Persian Ghazel poets Rumi and Saadi in the 13th century and Hafiz in the 14th century, the poetics of the Ghazel developed into a strict and highly complex system of relationships of form and meaning. The originally erotic content of the lyric was filled with religious content by poetic mystics and mystical poets, so that it was soon no longer possible to clearly distinguish what secular eroticism and what mystical love of God was supposed to express. In the 15th century, Jami took a middle position here , who, in addition to ghazel poets, was also an all-round scholar and Sufi order leader. From the 16th century onwards, the so-called “Indian style” poetry became such a complex and self-reflective system that it was hardly understandable for the inexperienced. Excellent representatives of this style are Sā'eb (Persian), Nâ'ilî-i qadîm (Ottoman) and Ghalib (Urdu).

Afghanistan, Pakistan, India

In Afghanistan, Pakistan and on the Indian subcontinent, the ghazel is now a form of poetry from Qawwali , a form of music that can be traced back to the Middle Ages . As such, it is defined not only by form but also by content. The exact text was often improvised; Originally the themes were always love of God and love of neighbor . With increasing secularization and also commercialization of this form of song, the romantic love of a (poet) man for a woman became the only theme of the Ghazel.

See also: Kassida .

German language area

In German-language literature, the Ghazel first appeared in translations of Persian poetry. Even Goethe tried during his work at the West-Eastern Divan it, but found no pleasure in the rigid form.

In the 19th century Ghaselen were very popular as a test of poetic artistry ( virtuosity ), for example with August von Platen , Theodor Storm , Gottfried Keller , and Detlev von Liliencron . However, they only adopted the form, not the tradition in terms of content; Platen, for example, used it for lyrical mood pictures. It is also conceivable that it was used because of its "foreign", exotic origin ( see exoticism ).

The poet, translator and orientalist Friedrich Rückert initially used the Ghazel in his free transcriptions of Arabic poetry. It can be found as an independent form in his Kindertodtenlieder . By Gustav Pfizer following poet (olog) ic reflection comes through this poem:

The Ghazel
My art turned to the Ghazele,
So that it may marry all forms.
Such colorful rhymes are delightful,
Whether life's pithy core is missing;
The walk itself enriches the mind,
Whether he does not plunder or steal anywhere.
Here you can learn how to love music
The language torments itself in some curvature
And, dominated by the unison of strict script,
Strange pictures half forced to choose.
The artist's art and composure often borrows
The value of the less precious jewel.
I beg you, judge, judge gently,
Because I don't hide my weaknesses myself
And jewelry under this colorful turban
Do not misjudge the real Christian soul.

The poem also reflects on what function and what consequences the adoption of a poem form from a foreign culture can have. But in this poem there is also a little fear of surrendering yourself too much to the stranger, of becoming part of it yourself; therefore it has to reassure the reader in the last verse that there is still a “real Christian soul” underneath the “colorful turban”.

The dispute between Heinrich Heine and Karl Leberecht Immermann and August von Platen can also be understood in this context . Immermann wrote some xenias which Heine added to the second part of his travel pictures ( The North Sea , 1826 ). He distanced himself from some by labeling, but not from the following:

From the fruits that they steal from the garden grove of Shiraz ,
Eat too much, the poor, and then eat gaseles .

The obvious accusation that Platen stole from other people's gardens and then also produced bad poetry opened the poets' dispute.

Fin de siècle

Precisely because it looked very mannered in German, some poets of the literary fin de siècle discovered it for themselves, such as Hugo von Hofmannsthal . As a particularly strict form, the Ghazel met the requirement of l'art pour l'art that poetry should form its own world with its own internal laws.

Example ( Hugo von Hofmannsthal , 1891):

The harmony of space is hidden in the poorest little violin,
ecstatic deep moans, exultations of sweet sounds are hidden;
In the stone by the way lies the spark that ignites the world,
the force of the terrible, lightning-like impact lies hidden.
In the word that has been picked up, there is what some are searching for in thought:
A truth, hidden with the clarity of shining crystal ...
Lures the tones, stings the truth, throws the stone with enormous forces !
Perfection has been hidden from our sight since the day of the fall.

a
a
x
a
x
a
x
a

Hofmannsthal used the shape of the Ghazel to keep returning to a certain “center point” and thus to emphasize one element of the poem (here “hidden” ). So the circular movement of the rhyme can create an evocative tone of voice.

music

Rückert's Kindertodtenlieder were u. a. set to music by Gustav Mahler (1901 and 1904), Kellers Gaselen by Othmar Schoeck (op. 38). Musical ghasels were composed by Franz Schubert , Ferdinand Hiller (Trois Ghasèles op. 54; Op. 130 No. 6), Felix Draeseke and Arnold Schönberg (Op. 6 No. 5).

poem

Poem by Josef Weinträger : "Ghasel" in: Chamber music, poetry book

I'm going home again. I am at the edge of
my strength - I am not sent.
I have done a lot of bad things in the world, I
hold the good in my cupped hand.
But as the person I am, there remains
a consolation, a good and true, turned towards me :
In every world of appearance and grief and number
I have always confessed to myself.
Who can do more: The noises are for themselves,
the deeds are known to the broader population,
the sins are burned down in nights, sleeplessly long,
in weakness, innocent.
I have nothing to confess or regret:
I am at the origin where I have always been.
My pride is out of this world - and even if
I withered, burned in this one:
I have my art. I am so small,
I am so big: and God understands the fire.

literature

Translations into German

German seals

  • Friedrich Rückert : Eastern roses . Leipzig, 1822.
  • August von Platen : Ghaselen . Erlangen: Heyder 1821
  • August von Platen: New Ghazels . Erlangen: Heyder 1836
  • Johann Traugott Löschke: Spiritual Divan: 142 Ghaselen for the price of the Lord . Munich 1847
  • Gottfried Keller : Gaselen . In: Newer Poems , 1851.
  • Max Bruns : Garden of the Ghazels . Minden: Bruns (1925)
  • Josef Weinträger: "Ghasel", poem in: "Chamber music". Langen-Müller, Munich 1939

Secondary literature

  • Noe, Klaus Peter: The Ghazel in the German Piano Song . Master's thesis, Würzburg 1982
  • Schimmel, Annemarie : Das Ghasel - chamber music of oriental poetry , in: Lieber Freund and Kupferstecher 4 (1988), pp. 7-11
  • Ünlü, Hülya: The Ghazel of the Islamic Orient in German Poetry . New York: Lang 1991. ISBN 0-8204-1478-6
  • Radjaie, Ali: The profane-mystical Ghazel of Hafez in Rückert's translations and in Goethe's 'Divan'. Würzburg: Ergon 2000. ISBN 3-932004-82-5
  • Kemp, Friedhelm: Das Ghasel: August von Platen and Friedrich Rückert , in: Das Europäische Sonett , 2 (2002), pp. 134–149

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Ghasel  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wehr, Hans: Arabic dictionary for the written language of the present , p. 602, Wiesbaden 1968
  2. ↑ Junker / Alavi: Persian-German Dictionary , p. 533, Leipzig / Teheran 1970
  3. ↑ Das Neue DUDEN-Lexikon, Vol. 4, p. 1454, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1984
  4. ↑ Complete edition, Vol. 4