Lenore (ballad)
_089.png)
Lenore is a ballad by the German poet Gottfried August Bürger . It was created in 1773 (according to some sources also in 1774) in Gelliehausen .
The ballad is still very well known today due to its eeriness and warning of blasphemy and is considered the most important work of Gottfried August Bürger after the stories about the baron of lies Karl Friedrich Hieronymus von Münchhausen . It also brought him considerable popularity internationally. The figure of Lenore also inspired other artists, e.g. B. Edgar Allan Poe ( The Raven ) . A retouching translation (William and Helen) is Walter Scott's first published work.
content
The battle of Prague is over, but Lenore's fiancé, Wilhelm, has still not returned from the Seven Years' War . Since he went into battle with King Frederick , Lenore has worried about him and hopes for his return every day, but she has not yet heard or seen from him. She begins to quarrel with God and says that he has never done her any good. The mother asks forgiveness for her daughter, knowing that such thinking is blasphemy and leads to hell. Finally, Wilhelm appears dead as a ghost and kidnaps Lenore on a ride through the night, on which they encounter many other ghosts and “rabble”. In the end he takes her into his coffin and brings her to the realm of the dead .
construction
introduction
Verses 1-4
In the introduction, the facts are brought closer to the reader and made understandable.
The king and the empress,
tired of long strife,
softened their hard mind
and finally made peace;
The past and the present situation are discussed here and the suffering of Lenore, who is waiting for her fiancé returning home, is described.
dialog
Verses 5-12
The second part of the ballad consists of a dialogue between the mother and Lenore. The dialogue revolves around Wilhelm and God. Lenore quarrels with God because of the severe blow of fate and insults him, the mother tries to end her blasphemy and says that Wilhelm has probably found another woman in Hungary and that she should let go of him.
“Listen, child! What if the wrong man
in the distant Ungerland has given up
his faith
for a new marriage bond? ––– "
Lenore doesn't let that calm her, however, and says that the only thing that could comfort her is death.
“O mother! what is bliss?
O mother! what is hell
With him, with him is bliss,
And without Wilhelm, hell!
Go out, my light! forever! "
The section ends with Lenore quarreling and raging with God into the night, the mother always trying to calm her down.
Ride and death
Verses 13-32
In the third section, Wilhelm returns as a ghost and persuades his fiancée to ride with him because he wants to bring her to her wedding bed. After the introduction and dialogue, the third part provides the tension and the dramatic aspect of the ballad. When Lenore asked Wilhelm to come into the house, Wilhelm replied:
“I'm not allowed to live here!
Come on, apron, jump and swing
on my pony behind me!
I have
to hurry to the bridal bed with you for a hundred miles today . "
He also says that they only saddle the horses at midnight and ride from Bohemia. Lenore finally agrees, albeit with doubts, and rides through the night with her late fiancé. During the ride they encounter many ghosts and rabble. Gradually, Lenore begins to realize that her fiancé is dead.
Finally, Lenore is brought to her “wedding bed” (“Six boards and two boards”), which turns out to be a coffin. She dies and is punished for her blasphemy.
Verse structure
The 32 stanzas of the ballad consist of 8 lines each with the rhyme scheme ABABCCDD. The lines A and C are four-part iambi with a male ending, and B and D are three-part iambi with a female ending.
Embassy
Lenore is supposed to teach and convey a message. The main motif of the ballad is the sin of blasphemy (blasphemy) and its inevitable atonement (the sinner dies at the end of the story). In a dialogue, the mother asks for forgiveness for her daughter's sins (“Oh, that God have mercy”) and tells her several times that everything God does has meaning and leads to a happy ending.
This topic was topical when the ballad was written and formed a central theological question, the so-called theodicy :
- Is everything predetermined?
- Why does God allow things like war and death?
- Will we ever find out the reason for such tragedies?
These are the central questions from Lenore . Questioning God's decisions is portraying citizens as blasphemy. He wanted to make this understandable and criticize by means of an example, as well as to warn people against questioning God's decisions or only making God responsible for the negative events.
Lenore's blasphemy is only dealt with in the second section (Dialogue with the Mother). Here, however, often and in many places:
- "There is no mercy with God"
- "God has not done me good!"
- "What helped, what did my praying help?"
At the end of the ballad Lenore dies because of her blasphemy ("you are single of your body"). Perhaps she even regrets her sin, in any case the possibility of her salvation is not excluded (“God be merciful to the soul”).
Dubbing
Franz Liszt wrote his first melodrama Lenore in 1857 . Joachim Raff called his 5th Symphony in E major (1872) Lénore . Henri Duparc composed the symphonic poem Lénore in 1875 . Antonio Smareglia (1854–1929) inspired the ballad for Leonora, sinfonia descrittiva in 1876 . In 1806 Anton Reicha (1770–1836) composed a cantata "Lenora".
Others
The painter Ary Scheffer created several pictures with reference to Bürger's poem.
In his comedy Die deutscher Kleinstädter (1802) , August von Kotzebue had the poet Sperling quote verses from Lenore in an inappropriate context ( Holla, holla, tu auf mein Kind etc.).
In his famous poem The Raven , Edgar Allan Poe uses the name Lenore for his late lover as an allusion to Bürger's ballad.
Bram Stoker used the phrase "[Because] the dead ride fast" from the ballad in his novel Dracula (1897) and in the posthumously published story Draculas Gast , which suggests a possible influence of the ballad on Stoker. The sentence is also quoted in the TV series Penny Dreadful by the character Abraham van Helsing opposite Victor Frankenstein . In addition, the dark wave band Sopor Aeternus used the phrase as the title of their 2003 album Es ride the dead so fast . Also text segment of the song Bondage Goat Zombie, the metal band Belphegor.
Aspazija uses the ghostly bridegroom of Lenore in the last stanza of her poem Spoku jājiens , published in 1899 ("The Ghost Ride "; with the title "Fin de siècle", recorded in Aspazija's second volume of poems Dvēseles krēsla in 1904 ) as a metaphor for the nearing century:
Am on the ghost
steed Lenore ... So pale light the moonlight gives off -
And who carries me, the groom of the dead,
embracing me with bony hands ,
Is - the century that is ending '.
In 2007, the Austrian documentary Die Vampirprinzessin tried to collect evidence for the thesis that Princess Eleonore von Schwarzenberg was mistaken for a vampire during her lifetime and that the ballad was named after.
Web links
- Bürger's ballad Lenore on literaturatlas.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Illustrations for Bürger's work
- ↑ in: Mājas Viesa Mēnešraksts № 10/1899
- ↑ Aspazija: Dvēseles krēsla ( Twilight of the Soul). St. Petersburg 1904, p. 53 f.
- ^ German by Matthias Knoll , literatur.lv