Earthly pleasure in God

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Contemporary illustration for Brocke's "Earthly Pleasure in God"

Earthly Pleasure in God , consisting of physical and moral poems is a collection of poems by Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680–1747), which appeared between 1721 and 1748 in nine volumes with a total of more than 5500 pages.

Text genres

In addition to the poems that Barthold Heinrich Brockes wrote himself, he also took translations into Earthly Pleasure in God . In the first volume there are eleven fables by Antoine Houdar de la Motte (1672–1731), in the second moralizing prose pieces from English and French , in the third the translation of the principles of world wisdom by Abbot Genest , in the seventh translation of the Night Thoughts of Edward Young and the eighth a short Robinsonade . The ninth volume contains some aphorisms in the appendix .

Introduction and appreciation

In almost all texts the motif of the observed creation is consistently found , which is valued by people in its analytical apprehension. It is not the overall view that is important here, but rather the individual consideration, which finds beauty in utility and in turn sees the right order of creation as a creation of God confirmed in usefulness for humans.

So whoever
sees God as present in all things at all times with a cheerful mind ,
Will, when soul and body rejoice through the senses, will
indeed shy away from resisting the great giver.

The reciprocal back-referenced connection between the gift of man to grasp creation sensually and the well-being of things then culminates in that confirmation of the Creator, which was called the teleological proof of God , in which, as later, naive piety and enlightened gesture merge into one seem to be. Primarily the smaller, everyday, inconspicuous or taken for granted living beings and landscapes, things and occurrences, such as can be found in grass , water or the little fly , are used for this evidence .

The contemplation often turns into a meditation clad in verse, which does not place value on a climax, effect or thematic context, especially not where the smallest part of sensual experience or rational reflection would have to be given up for the sake of this guideline. Teleological considerations in particular so often turn into considerations that move from the small to the smaller, which later appeared to be just as incomprehensible as the almost microscopic individual consideration of Brockes' poems. Here too, however, the show is undertaken less for its own sake - here it would also be useless, and therefore not sufficient for the claim of delectare et prodesse - than to demonstrate the revelatio naturalis .

It seemed as if snow had fallen;
Each one, even the smallest branch, was
carrying a real burden of
graceful white round balls.
There is no swan so white, for every leaf,
as the moon
itself breaks the gentle light through the delicate leaves,
even the shadows are white and especially black.
Impossible, I thought,
what knows can be found on earth

The ›new seeing‹ thus ultimately becomes prayer again: »The subjective-sensual sensation and the objective-empirical description of the object are followed by reflection on the usefulness of this object for people, and from this the praise of God is consequently derived, with which every poem closes «  (Grimm 1995, 491) . To make this experience accessible, some poems are almost like instructions for use:

The heather
It even shows the arid heath,
To our not insignificant joy,
If one looks at it very carefully,
The great creator's miracle power.
If we look at it from above,
it seems sad, black, withered and bad:
alone one looks at it correctly;
So she too is no less beautiful,
And one sees wonderfully in her
The splendor of colors, the ornamentation
almost irredeemably connected.
I have found this to be true.
For when I recently went out into
the field to represent myself ; I immediately found
that in the heather herb so graceful form,
No less than usual, to worship the Creator.
I sat down and plucked out many a bouquet in order to have a
better look at you.
My God! how much, how many
changes, adornments and delicacies did
I find in this herb, which from
afar leaves no other than if it is only colored brown.
I became at the same time, how beautiful, how wonderful.
How diverse education is, see.
The largest trees are found here
in such a beautiful and nice smallness
that one can
not sufficiently look at the trunks, branches and leaves , not sufficiently admire them.
I found that even though they were very small,
the trunks were real wood, like large trunks.
It has the strength, it burns, a bark
surrounds it, yes I think it is
right with Moß, like the aged oak,
surrounded and adorned. The
little flowers, which stand so beautifully ' On every little branch', as apple blossoms,
If one sees the host of bees which serve sweet food.
Keep looking, beloved man, at the heathen,
not just praise to God, not just joy!

A ›user guide‹ that satisfies both the empirical dictum of repeatability and the educational requirement of human education. Already at the beginning of the poem mentioned, it is pointed out that "very precisely"  (v. 3) must be considered - even if, it seems, the author himself has some doubts about his undertaking. So it is already in the introduction: "[...] even the drought Heide"  (v 1) , which seems taken up again here and there diminuting negations if the "no small joy"  (v 2) talk is to recognize the heathen as "no less beautiful"  (v. 8) , in which "no less than usual"  (v. 16) the Creator is to be worshiped.

To this end, the viewer goes in medias res , does not want to " look at it from above"  (v. 5) , which then only appears to be "sad, black, withered and bad"  (v. 6) , but rather "on the field".  (V. 14) to see "the splendor of colors, the ornamentation"  (v. 10) , and so, strictly speaking, accomplishes a twofold shift in perspective: the from above is replaced by that at eye level and the overall view through the individual consideration.

The empirical analysis can now focus on this and that what the heath has to offer, but would remain hidden from an overview. And here only now does empiricism come into play: The flammability of the wood material is checked (cf. v. 31) , a bouquet is pulled out for better visibility (cf. v. 17) and - this in advance - it is stated: »I have this found true "  (v. 11) . But unenlightened hubris is revealed here. Rather, God's "miraculous power" (v. 4; cf. v. 23) is confirmed in its usefulness  . A god who then does not seem to correspond entirely to the deism to be expected according to the time , the physics theology , is splendor and ornament only "almost incorrigibly connected"  (v. 11) , just as the miracle did not come from the watchmaker's past. Skill, but rather present power testifies. A god who nevertheless, it seems, gives earthly pleasure .

Dubbing

Georg Friedrich Händel set nine poems from Earthly Pleasure to music as nine German arias ( HWV 202–210).

literature

  • Friederike Diamant: The natural poetry by Pope, Brockes and Haller . Dissertation. Vienna 1937.
  • Elly M. Friese Apitz: The Poetic Development of Berthold Heinrich Brockes in His "Earthly Pleasure in God" . Dissertation. Johns Hopkins University, 1971.
  • Harold P. Fry: Aspects of Tradition in Berthold Heinrich Brockes' "Earthly Pleasure in God" 1721 . Dissertation. Chapel Hill 1975.
  • Harold P. Fry: Physics, classics, and the Bible. Elements of the secular and the sacred in Barthold Heinrich Brockes' "Earthly Pleasure in God" 1721 . Lang, New York 1990.
  • Gunter E. Grimm: German natural poetry. From the baroque to the present . Stuttgart 1995.
  • Georg Guntermann : Barthold Heinrich Brockes' "Earthly Pleasure in God" and the history of its reception in German German studies . Bonn 1980.
  • Otto Janssen : A feeling for nature and a feeling for nature with Berthold Hinrich Brockes . Dissertation. Bonn 1907.
  • Uwe-Karsten Ketelsen: The natural poetry of the North German Early Enlightenment . Stuttgart 1974.
  • Imogen Kupffer: The »Earthly Pleasure in God« by Berthold Heinrich Brockes. An investigation into the nature and development of nature poetry . Dissertation. Goettingen 1956.
  • Franzöffelholz : Experience of reality and conception of God in Berthold Heinrich Brockes' »Earthly Pleasure in God«. Dissertation. Frankfurt am Main 1955.
  • Fritz von Manikowski: The world and life view in the "Earthly Pleasure in God" by Berthold Hinrich Brockes . Dissertation. Greifswald 1914.
  • Wolfgang Martens : About natural poetry of the early Enlightenment. In: Donald C. Riechel (Ed.): FS Wolfgang Fleischhauer . Cologne, Vienna 1978, pp. 263-276.
  • Harry William Pfund: Studies on Word and Style in Brockes . New York, Lancaster 1935.
  • Geoffrey Howard Sutton: The Reception, Tradition and Influence of Barthold Heinrich Brockes' "Earthly Pleasure in God" . Dissertation. Cambridge 1974.
  • Hans M. Wolff: Brockes' religion . In: PMLA. 62, 1947, pp. 1124-1152.

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