Karma and Astra
Karma and Astra is the book title of a developmental and dramatic anthology by the playwright and poet Ernest Klee , written down in 1917. The full title is: Karma and Astra. The story of love in poetry and letters. The book was published in 1932 in the publishing house of Ernest Klee's writings in Reichenberg . The printing was done by G. Spiethoff, Jägergasse 3, Reichenberg.
content
The dramatic lyric poetry of Karma and Astra unfolds in a total of 50 poems that build on each other in terms of content, under six chapters and 92 pages, a development-lyric anthology of love and the pain of love, the metropolitan unfaithful new love and the loyal loved ones waiting at home.
With the exception of the first eight poems under the chapter heading Overture , the following 42 poems were written in the months of March, April, May 1917 in a Vienna polyclinic, in a convalescent home in Grinzing , in the hospital of the Barmherzigen Brüder in Vienna, by the injured 29-year-old German front-line soldiers Klee.
The eight poems in the Overture chapter are from the years 1908 ( Haan im Erzgebirge), 1911 and 1912 ( Teplitz-Schönau ), 1913 (Vienna), 1916 (Ikwafront near Dubno , today Ukraine, and Red Cross Spital, Deutsches Haus, Teplitz-Schönau ).
From the foreword:
“In February 1917, a kind fate brought a sick, dead tired soldier from the Stochod front to Vienna via Kowel and Lublin . Here he is admitted to the polyclinic. Karma, the sister of the dead comrade in war, approaches with loving sympathy. Far away, however, is Astra, the one who sacrifices. Thus, born out of the deepest spiritual conflict, a book about the joy and sorrow of love emerges during the months of March, April, May 1917. (...) Today they may find the understanding of those who still believe in the truth of love with a pure heart! "
1st chapter
The first chapter Overture shows Christian-influenced, development-lyric traits that deal with the first recognition of the opposite sex, with the first loved one at home (1908) in cherished romantic poetry. In the song of the end of youth, which is poured into the wounded German soldier on the Eastern Front in a local Red Cross hospital, the lyrical references to a local Astra, the victim and to a youth who ended too early in military service and who still has to catch up with youth.
2nd chapter
Chapter 2, New Encounter , which was created in Vienna in 1917 (like all the others that follow), sublimates the infatuation with karma with cheerful Christian puns and dark naming of the injuries in mind and body. She is presented as the beautiful sister of a dead war comrade.
3rd chapter
The third chapter, struggle, deals with the "two souls in the breast" and the anticipated repentance that would arise if the infatuation were reciprocated through the karma, the poet's fate. Klee conjures up the image of the floating dream of his love for his homeland of 9 years (from 1908), before the lyrical image of the first kiss of his southern-looking black and curly beauties. Karma is worshiped with the language of flowers and a humble Christian language game. Klee included texts from letters from his new middle-class loved ones in metropolitan Vienna in the poems. Word and counter-word of the lovers, remorse and moral pleasure alternate; a goodbye is lyrically sent to the southern black curly-haired lover Karmalitta at the end.
4th chapter
Chapter 4 Tired is symbolic of the "seafarer" who will soon have to return to his home country and happiness. The poem Ode to the Night even has four bars of a solemn melody with the text "Where are you, karma-litta, sweet dove!". In parting, the poet longs for his karma, his fate.
5th chapter
Chapter 5 Faith gives the wavering poet recovery and symbolic starlight. Between Karma and Astra, he commutes and finds security and light in his native, loyal lover “Astra”, from whom texts from her letters are now woven into the poems of the chapter. In the end the poet succumbs to the constant faithful confidence and love of his native Astra: "Ad Astra: is the way to action!"
6th chapter
The 6th chapter morning light has the motto of a derived Latin phrase Per Karma ad Astra (= through Karma (skill) to Astra (stars)). It comes with Christian pun, moral teaching and warning in the end through the gate of happiness of loyalty and to the Decalogue of love & repentance , admittedly with a raised index finger (“Aren't we all sinners?”).
contents
The six chapters of the lyric anthology and its poems are:
- Overture
- Astra (1916, Red Cross Hospital, Teplitz-Schönau)
- Are you a dream image (1908, Haan Erzgebirge)
- My prayer (1911, Teplitz-Schönau)
- Gratia plena (1912, Teplitz-Schönau)
- It was a long time ago ... (1913 Vienna)
- Justification (1916, Ikwafront Russia)
- You (1916, Red Cross Hospital, Teplitz-Schönau)
- Your worth (1916, Red Cross Hospital, Teplitz-Schönau)
- New encounters (1917, Vienna)
- Ex oriente
- So nice
- karma
- Desire
- Understanding
- pain
- Fear
- struggle
- thunderstorm
- Morning thoughts
- Words
- fairy tale
- Round dance
- First kiss
- Fulfillment
- karma
- conscience
- First spring morning
- Call
- karma
- Buses
- Predestination
- Stanzas of karma
- Karma on the piano
- Holy hour
- accusations
- Storm
- Tired
- Rest
- dreams
- song
- Where are you, Karmalitta ...
- Ode to the night
- Faith
- Consolation
- recovery
- Letters
- Morning light
- solution
- Insight
- Confession
- The ten commandments of love
- Sprouting shrub
- Prometheus
- "In hoc signo vinces."
- Morning light
Contemporary reviews around 1932 (from the publisher's own communications)
"... found that in Klee a very likeable poet speaks to us, whose works do not offer any modern peculiarities, but rather have intellectual condensation and formal maturity and sophistication."
"The poet Ernest Klee is a talented and hopeful interpreter of this time of suffering."
“In the Goethe year, one will be eager to resort to a kind of Faustian poetry, namely to the two dramatic pictures 'The Prophet' and 'The Tragedy of Mankind' by Ernest Klee, which show rich creative power and spiritual depth. (As is well known, the large theater publisher Max Pfeffer, Vienna-Berlin, has acquired the right to perform these two pieces for all stages in the world.) "
“Ernest Klee has the power of the revolution in him: the reevaluating, but constructive; he sings in a terrible accusation the suffering of those broken in false faith; but the most beautiful thing about him is the gift of being able to give courage and confidence. It breaks the foundations on which human misery alone could arise, - but full of wondrous, future-oriented faith - it is also able to give consolation. "
“Ernest Klee is a poet with powerful language. Luminous images strike up like a vortex of sparks. His words have strength and marrow, his thoughts are spun through, pile up like massive pillars .... "
Web links
- [1] PDF document (Czech) with information on Ernest Klee and other Sudeten German writers
- Russian area around the Ikwa
- The Austro-Hungarian Army Report, including Ikwafront