Hymn (poem form)

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The hymn (from the Greek : hymnos tone structure) is a form of poetry . The best way to translate “hymn” is as a hymn of praise.

Form and content

The hymn has no fixed form and free verse is often used. Inversion is also often used as a stylistic device . It is thus stylistically strongly comparable to the ode .

In terms of content, a hymn often describes the festive praise of (a) god . But the anthem can also be used to create a village , a real existing person or a circumstance or a feeling to be singing .

history

Hymns in ancient Egypt

The history of the hymn begins in the cult: In what is probably the oldest collection of religious sayings, the so-called pyramid texts (from the 24th century BC), the cultic motif dominates. The hymns gathered in these texts are addressed to Osiris, the god of the dead, or to the deceased as Osiris, and thus denote forms of cults of gods and deaths that can be considered the main elements of cultic hymns. There are also hymns of praise in the Old Testament of the Bible , such as B. the Book of Psalms .

Hymns in Greco-Roman antiquity

In ancient Greece, too, the expression “hymnos” means a song of praise and praise for the gods, which was performed in the context of cultic, religious festivals, mostly in honor of individual gods, and was written specifically for this purpose, such as the dithyramb as a special hymn of praise on Dionysus . It was not until 500 BC Hymns or epinicias from Pindar , which originated in the 4th century BC, are an exception to the cultic-ritual tradition, although they also establish the connection with divine powers that characterize the hymnos as a song of gods as songs of victory performed on religious festivals. The Latin church fathers traced the term "hymnus" back to the Greek "hymnos", and the terms "psalmos", "ode" and their Latin equivalents "psalmus" and "canticum" or "carmen" were used synonymously. The ancient Romans also knew the hymn.

Hymns in the Baroque

The baroque hymnics and poetry are still very much in a rhetorical and rule-poetic context. Disorder and free rhythms are usually only perceived as beautiful in a tamed form. The regular construction of Pindar's hymns was therefore considered beautiful: the metrical correspondence of “stanza, anti-strophe and the concluding, metrically varying epode.” This is shown by the term der, coined by Ronsard and adopted by Boileau-Despréaux in his L'art poétique "Beau désordre", ie the "beautiful mess".

Hymns in sensitivity

In his introduction to the first part of his Geistliche Lieder , published in 1757, Klopstock distinguishes between two types of spiritual and religious poetry, song and song: "The song is almost always short, fiery, strong, full of heavenly passion, often bold, violent," he is therefore only intended for “many”; on the other hand, the song is “an expression of gentle devotion” in which “most” can participate. Since Klopstock at the latest, a distinction has to be made between a hymn in the sense of the "song", which is primarily characterized by cultic or ceremonial veneration or praise, as it is the basis of the Christian liturgy: In this, enthusiasm is more likely than "gentle devotion" collective character. In contrast, there is a hymn in the sense of “song”, which is “bold, fiery, strong” and full of “heavenly passion”, that is, carried by spontaneous and subjective enthusiasm. With regard to this development, the Bonn Germanist Norbert Gabriel (* July 13, 1957; † September 4, 2016) used the term "hymn" to mean lyrical texts whose speakers are "always determined in relation to something different, higher". These hymnically enhanced songs include Klopstock's ode "Der Zürchersee", the song "An die Freude" by Johann Peter Uz or Friedrich Schiller's famous hymn "An die Freude".

Well-known hymn poets

Footnotes

  1. ^ Jan Assmann: Egyptian Hymns and Prayers, Zurich Munich 1975.
  2. ↑ Norbert Gabriel: History of the German Hymne, Munich 1992, p. 48.
  3. ^ Karl Viëtor: History of the German Ode (1923). Darmstadt 1961, p. 138 ff.
  4. ↑ a b Friedrich Klopstock: Complete Works, Leipzig 1854f. Vol. 5. Leipzig 1855, p. 44 ff.
  5. ↑ Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek : The Enthusiasmus in der Hymne, in: Ders .: Affektpoetik. A cultural history of literary emotions, Würzburg 2005, pp. 77–114.
  6. ^ Norbert Gabriel: Studies on the history of the German hymn, Munich 1992, p. 11.