Do you know the land where the cannons bloom?
Do you know the land where the cannons bloom? is a poem by Erich Kästner that was published on October 29, 1927 in the magazine Das Tage-Buch . In the spring of 1928 he included it in his first collection of poems, Herz auf Waistle , which appeared with drawings and vignettes by Erich Ohser .
With his verses , Kästner parodied the famous song Do you know the land where the lemons bloom? ( Mignon ) Johann Wolfgang von Goethes , who sang about the longing for Italy that was widespread among Germans . The poem is one of Kästner's best-known works, was printed in numerous anthologies and is shaped by his pacifist and anti-militarist attitude.
Form and content
The work comprises seven stanzas , each with four cross - rhymed five-point verses . In contrast to Goethe's three-verse model, it dispenses with the final three lines of verse of the refrain and also deviates from Mignon with the alternation of male and female endings . The first stanza reads:
Do you know the land where the cannons bloom?
You don't know You will get to know it!
There the authorized signatories stand proudly and boldly
in the offices, as if they were barracks.
Background and origin
With his verses, Kästner varied one of the most famous poems in the German language, the song of the androgynous child woman Mignon from Goethe's Bildungsroman , which, with its sensual, hallucinatory verses, is considered the epitome of German poetry and sings of the longing for Italy that was widespread among Germans , of which Goethe himself was an example. It first appeared in Wilhelm Meister's theatrical broadcast before Goethe took it up in Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship , where it introduces the third book.
From 1924 to 1929 Kästner published many of his satirical poems in the pacifist weekly Das Tage-Buch . During the Weimar Republic , the paper founded by Stefan Großmann developed into an important critical publication organ of the Weimar Republic, its appearance was reminiscent of the world stage and was temporarily overseen by Carl von Ossietzky until 1926 .
Herz auf Taille was published by Curt Weller & Co , which about a year later also published the volume of poems Lärm im Spiegel . The first edition was provided with drawings by Erich Ohser , whom Kästner had come to know and appreciate during his time as a journalist in Leipzig and whom he described as clumsy, cocky and full of energy. Ohser illustrated other works by his friend, such as the volumes of poetry A Man Gives Information and Singing Between the Chairs , for which he contributed the vignettes and designed the dust jackets . With the second edition of Herz auf Waistle , Ohser's pictures were deleted, which Kästner explained by saying that the “young publisher” had to bow to “indignant public opinion, ie influential conservative booksellers”.
Because of the irreverent reference to Goethe, Kästner's parody is one of his best-known works and illustrates his attitude towards literary tradition. The work, which he performed himself in a television recording, is linked to other texts that also show his anti-militarist stance. Kästner was not at the front during the First World War , but had some classmates who died there. He chose his text references from a cultural-historical epoch that was idealized at the end of the 19th century as the pinnacle of art and humanity. The important phase up to the Romantic period was followed by several wars , which showed the emerging strengthening of Prussia's military power, for example in the conflicts of 1864 and 1866 .
He reflected several times on the position of his own poetry, in which affects can be recognized against the idealistic poem and the classics of literature. His work can be understood as a critical reaction to the era of Expressionism . The poems written during the Weimar Republic read in places like counter-drafts to the expressionist pathos, to which he reacted with a mixture of traditional lyrical language and strikingly factual forms of expression. His sober appearing by himself the " Gebrauchslyrik " attributed the verses are New Objectivity assigned, are often based on everyday jargon and do not shy away trenchant conclusion formulas in simple jokes, nonsense and puns can slide.
interpretation
According to Rüdiger Bernhardt , Kästner resorted to the Mignon verse to describe the decline of the German spirit. While Italy was the goal of artistic and practical education for the most famous German poet and other cultured contemporaries , the new version shows an anti-spirit, thoroughly militarized Germany that no longer longs for art and beauty , but is enthusiastic about weapons , war and the military. Even the proverbial phrase “You will get to know it!” In the second line with the exclamation mark and the reference to the changed country now appears extremely threatening. Before the First World War, Kästner had already gathered impressions that shaped his life and worldview. Training at the teachers' seminar in Dresden seemed to him like a barracks and was reminiscent of exercises on the parade ground. In his treatise On the Origin of the Teacher (1946), he described and criticized the methods used there, which shed light on some of the terms used in the poem. The pupils had to “stand backwards” when they met a professor and stand at attention or were chastised .
In the first stanza he targeted another work from the heyday of art and philosophy, the song An der Saale hellem Strande by the art historian Franz Kugler . While there are “proud and daring” castles on the banks of the Saale , the “ authorized signatories ” are now merchants and upscale administrative employees in offices.
For Werner Schneyder , the poem title and first line were fitting examples of satirical methodology. The anger over the desecration of the “classic line” is reinforced by the word “cannons”, while the coherent wording of the parody either makes “foaming or concerned”.
literature
- Rüdiger Bernhardt : Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations Special, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8044-3057-0 , pp. 93-101
- Andreas Drouve: Erich Kästner - moralist with a double bottom. Tectum, Marburg 1999, ISBN 3-8288-8038-X , pp. 84-88
- Sven Hanuschek: Nobody looks behind your face. The life of Erich Kästner . Carl Hanser Verlag, Vienna 1999, ISBN 978-3-446-25716-0 , p. 132
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from: Rüdiger Bernhardt : Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations Special, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8044-3057-0 , p. 93
- ↑ Peter von Matt : Dangerous Perfection. In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (ed.), 1000 German poems and their interpretations, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1994, p. 159
- ^ Rüdiger Bernhardt: Erich Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, p. 95
- ^ Rüdiger Bernhardt : Erich Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, p. 94
- ↑ Sven Hanuschek: Nobody looks behind your face. The life of Erich Kästner . Carl Hanser Verlag, Vienna 1999, p. 127
- ↑ Sven Hanuschek: Nobody looks behind your face. The life of Erich Kästner . Carl Hanser Verlag, Vienna 1999, p. 92
- ↑ Quoted from: Sven Hanuschek: Nobody looks behind your face. The life of Erich Kästner . Carl Hanser Verlag, Vienna 1999, p. 127
- ^ Rüdiger Bernhardt: Erich Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, p. 97
- ^ So Peter J. Brenner: Erich Kästner. The lyric work. In: Kindlers Neues Literatur Lexikon Volume 9, Munich 1990, p. 17
- ^ Rüdiger Bernhardt: Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations Special, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, p. 95
- ↑ Quoted from Rüdiger Bernhardt: Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations Special, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, p. 96
- ^ Rüdiger Bernhardt: Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations Special, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, p. 96
- ^ Rüdiger Bernhardt: Kästner. The lyric work. King's Explanations Special, C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2010, p. 95