Autumn day

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Autumn day is a symbolist poem by Rainer Maria Rilke , which he wrote in 1902. It can be found in his volume of poetry The Book of Pictures and describes in three stanzas the transition from summer to autumn.

Emergence

In the autumn of 1902 Rilke had left his wife, the sculptor Clara Westhoff , in Berlin and moved to Paris, where he was working on a monograph on the sculptor Auguste Rodin . These various, for Rilke rather negative circumstances, can be of importance in the autobiographical interpretation. In the meantime he had also written the poem.

content

Lord: it's time. The summer was very big.
Put your shadow on the sundials
and let go of the winds in the hallways.

Order the last fruits to be full;
give them two more southerly days,
push them to perfection and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

If you don't have a house now, you won't build one anymore.
Those who are alone now will stay there for a long time,
will watch, read, write long letters
and
wander restlessly back and forth in the avenues when the leaves drift.

shape

The poem is divided into three stanzas, each with an increasing number of verses. Explicitly, the first stanza consists of an embracing rhyme with an orphan in the center and the second consists of a full embracing rhyme. The third stanza follows the same scheme as the second, but with an additional verse that rhymes with the inner two of the embracing rhymes. The four-part structure is implicitly achieved in the first stanza with an internal rhyme (verse 2f: sundials, corridors).

Viewed metrically, the poem follows a five-part iambus that is interrupted for certain emphases. The rhythm is accentuated right at the beginning by the apostrophe "Herr": There is a stressed syllable in the unstressed position. Furthermore, there is an irregularity in verse six (middle of the poem) as well as in the last verse, which, together with the word "Lord" in the first line, surrounds the poem parenthetically and gives it a symmetry beyond the stanzas.

interpretation

One of the first questions that arises when interpreting the poem is about the characters. In this case, the lyric self is the poet himself. After various forms of address that Rilke had used for God in earlier poems, this time he approaches him simply and simply, apparently in prayer. This is indicated by the imperatives in the second stanza, which do not express orders but requests.

God is reduced here by the atheist Rilke to a purely weather-determining personality, like many other stereotyped deities. Different things have to be done and the poet is basically giving God the instructions. Rainer Kirsch calls him the majordomo who takes care of the "large landowner" that "the right thing comes into his head at the right time".

In the third stanza, however, a change of subject suddenly takes place: we leave the prayer between the poet and God and turn to self-reflection about autumn. Rilke himself is restless (underlined by the broken meter in “restless”) wandering around in the world. However, he does not see this as a negative, but uses it as an opportunity to e.g. B. reading books or writing letters. In contrast to this is perhaps Walter Hinck's thesis, which rather provides a depressed and self-contained interpretation of the closing verses. He also draws specific parallels to the autumn theme at Trakl and Nietzsche .

Settings

  • Conrad Beck : Drei Herbstgesänge for alto and piano (organ), No. 1; 1926
  • Winfried Zillig : Songs of Autumn for low voice and piano, No. 2; 1940
  • Zoltán Gárdonyi : Five Rilke songs for soprano and piano, No. 1; 1940/41
  • Ernst Lothar von Knorr Five Songs for Baritone and Orchestra or Piano, No. 5; 1950.
  • Petr Eben : Six songs for medium voice and piano, No. 2; 1961
  • Paavo Heininen : Shadows of the Earth for voice and piano op. 30, no. 2; 1973
  • Bertold Hummel Herbsttag for voice and piano op. 71c; 1980 [1]
  • York Höller : Autumn Day for mezzo-soprano and eight instruments (flute, celesta, harp, harpsichord and string quartet); 1966/1999
  • Krzysztof Penderecki : 8th Symphony - Songs of Transience for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra, No. 11; 2005
  • Valentin Ruckebier : Autumn Day for four-part male choir; 2014
  • Martin Spengler and the foischn Viennese: Es is Zeit (text adapted into Viennese language); 2013
  • Mayjia Gille (singer-songwriter of the band EISVOGEL), setting of the autumn poem under the title: “Hold nothing back”, published by the label RUM Records Leipzig 2017, Löwenzahnverlag. CD "Luxusnacht", LC06327, LZ 20172
  • Marcel Haag : "Autumn Day", Track 7 on the music album "Von den Flüssen", Rock Archive, LC 12366

Web links

Wikisource: Autumn Day  - Sources and Full Texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Hinck: stations of German poetry. From Luther to the present. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, p. 126.
  2. ^ Rainer Kirsch: A matter for the boss and work. In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Hrsg.): German poems and their interpretations. Volume 6, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 255.
  3. ^ Rainer Kirsch: A matter for the boss and work. In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Hrsg.): German poems and their interpretations. Volume 6, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 254.
  4. ^ Rainer Kirsch: A matter for the boss and work. In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Hrsg.): German poems and their interpretations. Volume 6, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 255.
  5. ^ Rainer Kirsch: A matter for the boss and work. In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Hrsg.): German poems and their interpretations. Volume 6, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 256.
  6. ^ Walter Hinck: stations of German poetry. From Luther to the present. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, p. 127.
  7. CD "Luxury Night" at deutsche-mugge.de