idyll

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Nicolas Poussin : Les Bergers d'Arcadie ou Et in Arcadia ego (1640)

The term Idyll ( n. , From ancient Greek εἰδύλλιον eidýllion , originally “picture”, then “little poem”), also Idylle ( f. ), Colloquially describes a harmoniously transfigured rural life. One usually means a picture or a state that appears contemplative and peaceful to the viewer. Attractive landscape shots, which often depict castles, palaces and memorable natural objects or cultural landscapes in pictures or graphics and in which disturbing objects remain hidden, are referred to as postcard idyll.

In addition, the idyll (or the idyll ) describes a genre of the epic , which, like the colloquial usage, goes back to the idyll ( Εἰδύλλια Eidýllia ) of the ancient Greek poet Theokrit , in which he made rural life the main subject in the form of shepherd poems ( bucolic ).

History of the literary genre of the idyll

Roman poets such as Virgil and Catullus or the English poet Tennyson imitated this poetry. In German-language literature , the idyll had a heyday in the 18th century. Salomon Gessner , for example, was particularly influential . At the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries, the reinterpretation of the idyll began, partly with socially critical intentions as with Johann Heinrich Voss , partly leading to a bourgeois idyll as in Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea (1797) or even entirely into one urban milieu transplanted as in Johann Martin Usteri's De Herr Heiri or in Jonas Breitenstein's Der Her Ehrli . The topos of locus amoenus , the lovely place, often located at a remote spring or in a quiet grove , belongs to the literary idyll . The idyll is closely connected - at least in modern imagination - with the idea of ​​a mythical Arcadia , a place beyond all social constraints.

Johann Heinrich Voss removed the term from the bond with country life and above all from the atmosphere of the “ideal world” and the harmonious coexistence. His idylls represent basic human attitudes such as love, contentment, but also superstition or the striving for freedom in easily manageable scenes. With his "rural poem in three idylls" Luise , he paved the way for the little epic that began with Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea and immediately the Peak reached. In contrast to the static idyll, the little epic depicts an event in which an unforeseen event leads to new developments.

Within American literature , the idyll has found a certain revival since the 2000s with the Amish Romance Novel .

literature

  • Carsten Behle: "Hail to the citizen of the small town". Studies on the social theory of the idyll in the 18th century. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-484-36571-4 (short version of the dissertation Justus Liebig University Gießen 2000, 413 pages).
  • Jan Gerstner / Christian Riedel (ed.): Idylls in contemporary literature and media. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2018, ISBN 978-3-8498-1279-9 . Reading sample
  • Karin Kluger: The last moment of the pretty idyll: Reception aesthetic and reception historical considerations for problematizing the idyll in Wilhelm Raabe , UMI, Ann Arbor, MI 1999 DNB 956059244 (dissertation University of New York, 256 pages).
  • York-Gothart Mix : idyll. In: Dieter Lamping in collaboration with Sandra Poppe, Sascha Seiler, Frank Zipfel (eds.): Handbook of literary genres. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, pp. 393-402, ISBN 978-3-520-84101-8 .
  • Helmut J. Schneider: Bürgerliche Idylle: Studies on a literary genre of the 18th century using the example of Johann Heinrich Voss . Bonn 1975, DNB 760673586 ( Dissertation University of Bonn 1975, 202 pages).
  • Helmut J. Schneider (Ed.): Idylls of the Germans. Texts and illustrations. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-458-05031-0 .
  • Johann Heinrich Voss: The little idylls ; edited by Klaus Langenfeld (= Stuttgart Theses on German Studies No. 416). Heinz, Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-88099-421-8 .
  • Gero von Wilpert : Keyword “idyll” . In: Subject dictionary of literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 8th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-23108-5 .
  • Julia Wirxel: Idylls in contemporary art (= art and cultural studies in the present , volume 5), Athena, Oberhausen 2012, ISBN 978-3-89896-516-3 (dissertation University of Duisburg 2008, 392 pages with illustrations, 24 cm) .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Heinrich Voss: The small idylls ; edited by Klaus Langenfeld (= Stuttgart Theses on German Studies No. 416). Heinz, Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-88099-421-8 .