Heavenly Thoughts

Himmelsgedanken , the collection of poems by Karl Mays , was published by Friedrich Ernst Fehsenfeld at Christmas 1900outside of the series of collected travel stories . It was selling badly.

Overall impression

Karl May's thoughts on heaven are a literary fruit of his trip to the Orient . In turning away from the direct processing of travel impressions in the form of the lyrical travel diary in favor of abstract religious " didactic poems " as well as the tension between the message of optimistic confidence in faith and the accumulation of melancholy motifs, they are a testimony to the difficult psychological situation that May encountered during the real encounter on the one hand depressed the Orient , but on the other hand gave it impetus for its literary reorientation. On the philosophical-spiritual level, the book is the interface between the “classic” travel stories and the old work . Most of its contents refer back to the religious reflections in the works created before the turn of the century , which were shaped by traditional biblical-Christian thinking . In several poems and aphorisms, however, the work builds a bridge to the “Journey into an inner Orient”, on which May set out from the beginning of writing Et in terra pax in the spring of 1901.

Text history

Most of the poems were written on Karl May's trip to the Orient.

He also used some repeatedly for guest book entries or book dedications.

A planned second volume of the Heavenly Thoughts (1903, preserved as a manuscript) remained unpublished.

expenditure

After delivery at Christmas 1900 (1st to 5th thousand) May's collection of poems did not appear again until 1918, this time no longer as a separate edition, but under the title Lichte Höhen as Volume 49 in the format and guise of the collected works .

In 1921 there was an edition expanded to include the drama Babel and the Bible in various configurations.

A heavily edited version was already available in the mid-1930s, but only a few copies were distributed in the form of incomplete make-up sheets. In 1956, Volume 49 was finally reprinted with a heavily edited version of Himmelsgedanken .

In 1988 an unedited version was published by Union Verlag Berlin- Ost, in which, however, the aphorisms are missing.

In 1998, Volume 49 was adjusted to the text of the first edition. A complete reprint of the first edition, edited by Ralf Schönbach, was published in 2005 by Books on Demand, Norderstedt.

reception

For his oratorio Where the Lord Will Not Build the House ... premiered in 2006 in the Luther Church in Dresden-Neustadt , Günter Neubert used eleven poems from The Heavenly Thoughts (1988, Union-Verlag), namely:

• Blind and yet seeing , Str. 1 (p. 70)
• Superficiality , Str. 1,1-4 and 3,1-4 (p. 168)
• Insight , Str. 2 (p. 55)
• You have --- , Str. 2 (p. 85)
• Reue , Str. 2 (p. 82)
• Purification , Str. 3 (p. 46)
• Appeal , Str. 2 (p. 59)
• Forgiveness , Str. 2,1-4 (p. 48)
• Evening prayer , Str. 3 (p. 97)
• At the end , Str.2,5-8 (p. 171)
• Empor , Str. 1 (p. 52)

Assessments

Critical

In 1988 Gerhard Dahne wrote in his foreword to the heavenly thoughts :

“… In general, Karl May was the big loser, a man who was hounded to death by a merciless journalle at the height of his fame. This vertex between ascent and descent is marked by the volume of poems and aphorisms, Himmelsgedanken, which came out in 1901 and heralded the artistic suspension of his work in inedible symbolism. Oh, if only he had remained the carefree dreamer who wrote along! (P. 12)

... He described his entire work as a single ascent to God. This symbolic transfiguration took place in the tormented novels' Winnetous Erben 'and' Ardistan und Dschinnistan ', although a notepad constantly warned him on his desk:' The figures are clear, bright, pure and large / Avoid harsh, glaring painful lights! / Classic shapes, in sublime, serene calm! / Don't flicker! Don't be theatrical! / Simple truth! / Beware of schoolmasters! ' (P. 18 f.)

... Action and space often determine each other in such a way that the resolution of the conflicts occurs where the landscape has increased in height. At the highest point on the route, nothing disturbs the harmony between heaven and soul. We find the extract of this correlation in the poems of the volume 'Himmelsgedanken'. (P. 20)

... Whether as Kara Ben Nemsi , which claims him to be the son of the Germans, or as a Kuang-si-tasse, which should mean something like 'Great shine, Doctor from the West', no one has commanded God more intimately than the German Saxon. But despite this nationalistic superhumanity, there is no doubt about Karl May's sincere charity. He expressly writes in 'Heavenly Thoughts':' The peoples are interrelated to one another, by which each individual is more or less affected. If he believes that he has to exploit this contact only for his own benefit, then he deprives those he seeks to exploit both the possibility and the good will to continue to serve him for enrichment. ' (P. 20 f.)

... Tract-like agitation is condemned to poetry through meter and rhyming, which wants to walk measured and yet only constantly stumbles over its own stilts. What in the prosaic formulation of the travel stories splashed along inconspicuously under strong arcs of tension, now puffs up to oozing swelling. (P. 21 f.)

... Anyone who reads or has read his books and adventure novels should not disdain reading the poems. They give insights, are Karl May's creed. ... " (p. 23)

Ambivalent

On the basis of an analysis of the poem Im Alter , written in Aden , Christoph F. Lorenz noted in 1982 a mixture between “resigned autumn mood” due to the press attacks and the “impending worsening of his marital crisis” and a positive determination for a literary and human new beginning.

Walter Schönthal and Reinhard Tschapke, who also specifically refer to Im Alter , found in 2001 that “(v) ome of the poems (…) also (have) a dark undertone” and that “they contain (…) problems and phases of Resignation (mirroring) that May had to struggle with at the time the poem was written ”.

And: Karl May himself in a letter of August 9, 1907 to Karl Hoeber , the successor of Hermann Cardauns as chief editor of the Kölnische Volkszeitung , pointed out a psychological level of heavenly thoughts: “The book does not contain a single lyrical word, but only Rhymed psychological perspectives! ”This could at least be an indication that the writer could have been aware of the existence of an autobiographical level of heavenly thoughts if the late May understood by“ psychology ”rather his spiritual-ethical model of man and his development.

And Hartmut Wörner judged in his 2017 article Between Depression and Awakening :

“... In view of the existence of a strong autobiographical current of 'heavenly thoughts', it is worth investigating what role the pronounced spiritual-philosophical 'outside' of the texts played as a 'counterweight' to May's depressive mood. The question arises as to whether the 'particularly intense clinging to Christian faith' in the poems and aphorisms and the dark autobiographical level are not closely interlinked, indeed 'two sides of the same coin'. According to the will of the author, the 'Himmelsgedanken' should convey an optimistic message of faith to the reader and - unlike the volumes 3 and 4 of the 'Silver Lion' novel, which were created a few years later - not convey any autobiographical statements. ' The entire volume of' Heavenly Thoughts' is dedicated to God . God is the muse of the lyric subject (...). "

“That is why we naturally also find texts in the book that are free of 'dark' motifs; this is true of a whole series of poems and almost all aphorisms. Where the melancholy mood of the author traveling through the Orient breaks through, it is directly contrasted with the irresistible power of the Christian message, which, according to May, defeats the evil and the dark in the world, removes conflicts and makes death appear as bogus because earthly life is already part of eternity. At the end of the poems, even after a gloomy beginning, there is always the ascent to 'clear heights', often carried out gradually over several stanzas. Undoubtedly, the 'Heavenly Thoughts' are an expression of May's confidence in faith. However, they also occupy a special position in his work because the positive turns appear in some places as if they were compulsively conjured up despite the authentic religiosity in view of the power of the depressive mood. ... "

Remarks

1. ↑ Wörner: Between Depression and Awakening ... , 2017, p. 217 f.
2. ↑ Michael Petzel, Jürgen Wehnert: The new lexicon around Karl May . P. 164.
3. ↑ To a certain extent, as a supplement to this edition, issue 1 of Department II / Group E of the Archive Edition Collection Die Schatulle Bad Segeberg Karl May: Life - Work - Effect , published by Ekkehard Bartsch, Bad Segeberg o. J. You can find it here the aphorisms in the reprint together with other materials as well as additions and corrections to the Union-Verlag edition.
4. ↑ http://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Lichte_Höhen_(GW49)
5. ↑ Günter Neubert: Thoughts on the oratorio "Where the Lord does not build the house ..." , ADU-Verlag No. 210 (online) ; see G. Neubert: Catalog raisonné. Orchestral Works No. 23 (online) .
6. ↑ Lorenz: Notes on the poetry of Karl Mays , 1992, p. 147 f.
7. ↑ Schönthal / Tschapke: Work article 'Lyrik' . In: Karl May Handbook . Edited by Gert Ueding in collaboration with Klaus Rettner. 2nd expanded and edited edition, Würzburg 2001, p. 479.
8. ↑ Quoted from Hans Wollschläger : “The so-called division of the human interior, an image of the division of humanity in general”. Materials for a character analysis by Karl May . In: Jb-KMG 1972/73, Hamburg 1972, p. 59.
9. ↑ Quoted in Wörner: Between Depression and Awakening ... , 2017, pp. 208 f.
10. ↑ Schönthal / Tschapke: work article 'Lyrik' , 2001, p. 480.
11. ↑ Wolfgang Braungart : Erbauungsliteratur. Notes on Karl May's poetry . In: Jb-KMG 2002. Husum 2002, pp. 19-39 (23).
12. ↑ Wörner: Between Depression and Awakening ... , 2017, p. 210.

literature

• Gerhard Dahne : Foreword: Karl May - the Saxon throat , in: Himmelsgedanken. Poems by Karl May , Berlin: Union Verlag 1988, pp. 11–24.
• Wolfgang Hermesmeier, Stefan Schmatz : Karl May Bibliography 1913–1945 , Bamberg / Radebeul: Karl May Verlag 2000. ISBN 3780201577
• Christoph F. Lorenz: "As a lyric poet we have to forbid Mr. May"? Notes on Karl May's poetry . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 1982, pp. 131–157. (Online version)
• Christoph F. Lorenz: Foreword: How to get to the summit? Karl May as a poet, playwright and essayist . In: Light heights. Poetry and drama by Karl May , Bamberg / Radebeul: Karl-May-Verlag 1998, pp. 5–24.
• Ralf Schönbach: Follow-up comment on the reprint .
• Heinz Stolte : Karl May as poet ... , in: ders .: The folk writer Karl May. Contribution to literary folklore , Radebeul near Dresden: Karl-May-Verlag 1936, p. 141 ff.
• Dieter Sudhoff , Hans-Dieter Steinmetz : Karl May Chronicle II to V . Special volumes on the collected works. Karl-May-Verlag Bamberg – Radebeul 2005/06. ISBN 978-3-7802-0170-6
• Werner Thiede : Heavenly Thoughts - from the source of Christian theosophy? On Karl May's spiritual poems . In: Christoph F. Lorenz (ed.): Between heaven and hell. Karl May and religion. Second, revised and expanded edition. Karl-May-Verlag Bamberg – Radebeul 2013, pp. 339–364.
• Hartmut Vollmer: Karl May's collection of poems "A pilgrimage to the Orient" . In: Jb-KMG 2009, pp. 121-130 ( online version ).
• Hartmut Wörner: Between depression and departure. Karl May's trip to the Orient and his volume of poems ›Himmelsgedanken‹ . In: Yearbook of the Karl May Society 2017, pp. 193–222.

Web links

An overview of individual Karl May poems available on the Internet can be found in the Karl May Wiki .

• Grandmother (1988, p. 67)
• In old age (p. 71)

• Text on the website of the Karl May Society.
• Overview of secondary literature on the topic .