Children's death songs

Grave of Ernst and Luise Rückert in the Neustädter Friedhof in Erlangen . On the wooden panel on the birch tree, which was probably planted during Rückert's lifetime, is the second stanza of the song Always did I do her will .

As children Todt songs the poet called Friedrich Rückert the 428 poems he wrote under the impact of the death of his children Louise and Ernst 1833/1834.

The poems became famous through the setting of Gustav Mahler . The historian and writer Hans Wollschläger called the Kindertodtenlieder "the greatest lament for the dead in world literature".

background

All of Rückert's six children at the time had developed scarlet fever in December 1833 . On December 31, 1833, Rückerts' only daughter Luise (born June 25, 1830) died on January 16, 1834 his son Ernst (born January 1, 1829). The other four children recovered from the disease.

Luise Rückert
(died December 31, 1833)
Ernst Rückert
(died January 16, 1834)
Friedrich Rückert

content

Rückert wrote over 400 “Kindertotenlieder” in memory of his “two dearest and most beautiful children”, only a few of which were printed during his lifetime and a tiny selection later set to music by Gustav Mahler. They are not outbursts of desperation, but sighs that ask about the meaning of fate. Annemarie Schimmel is of the opinion that the death of these two children was the end of Rückert's creative time as a poet. He says of his daughter Luise, "She didn't stay and took my word away from me," because he couldn't follow her as he had promised.

The poems are very variable in length (from four to over 30 verses), rhyme scheme and meter. Often there are oriental-inspired repetitions of rhymes.

You are a shadow during the day

The little song “You are a shadow during the day” is formally related to the Ghazel , a form of poetry from classical Persian poetry that Rückert introduced into German literature.

The first stanza addresses elements from the oriental world, such as the light in the night that shows travelers the way. The "shade during the day" is also a picture of the Orient, the place that offers protection from the hot sun, that promises coolness and tranquility.

You are a shadow by day
and a light by night;
You live in my lament
and you do n't die in my heart.

The word "tent" also indicates the oriental world. Otherwise the beginning of the whole poem is repeated in the third and fourth lines of verse.

Where I pitch my tent,
you live close to me;
You are my shadow by day
and my light by night.

The third and fourth lines of verse are also a repetition, namely the second half of the first stanza.

Memorial stone for Jakob von Metzler with the text of the third stanza

Wherever I ask about you,
I will find a report about you,
you live in my lament
and do not die in my heart.

If the last stanza seems to repeat the first, the sound has changed as the lament becomes consolation. In some editions it says "You are my shadow during the day / and my light at night".

You are a shadow by day,
But a light by night;
You live in my lament
and you do n't die in my heart.

The lyrics of "You are a shadow during the day" were processed in 2009 by the German metal band Maroon in the song "Shadow" on the album "Order".

Let me lie in the green

From this well-known poem only the first of twelve stanzas is quoted here, the closing verse of which reads “Under flowers and clover!” Each time. The garden motif, life (and death) under flowers always remained a central motif for Rückert. The poem "Small Household" set to music by Carl Loewe says: "And if they throw us down from the car, / This is how we find a grave under flowers"

Let me lie in the green
under flowers and clover,
nestle
under flowers , under flowers and clover!

How beautiful the flowers bloom

Here, too, the oriental-inspired repetition of rhymes is evident. In the poem, the first verse in each of the five stanzas ends with “-blühn”, the third with the word “Rose” and the fourth with “Moose”, only in the second verse different words rhyme with “green” and “sprühn” ".

How beautiful the flowers bloom
In the garden, fresh and green,
No one more beautiful than the rose,
which is wreathed with moss.

output

Friedrich Rückert: Kindertodtenlieder. Re-edited with an introduction by Hans Wollschläger . Published by Greno, Nördlingen 1988. ISBN 3-89190-442-8 .
Friedrich Rückert: Kindertodtenlieder. and other texts from the 1834 historical-critical edition, edited by Hans Wollschläger and Rudolf Kreutner . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2007. ISBN 3-83530-070-9 .

literature

Annemarie Schimmel : Friedrich Rückert - Life picture and introduction to his work. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder-Verlag, 1987 ISBN 3-451-08371-X .
Ralf Georg Czapla : "... to continue writing your life." Friedrich Rückert's "Kindertodtenlieder" in the context of literary and cultural history . Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 2016 ( Rückert studies , 21). ISBN 978-3-95650-123-4 .