Lissa sonnets

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Title page and the publisher's information at the end of the book.

The sonnets of the first volume of poetry published by Andreas Gryphius and printed in Lissa, Poland in 1637 are called Lissa sonnets . Among the 31 sonnets are the original versions of some of Gryphius' most famous poems “which I have impressed on the lyrical memory”, such as “VANITAS, VANITATUM, ET OMNIA VANITAS. It's all gãtz eytel. Eccl. 1st v. 2. " later titled" It's all vain. "

Emergence

Gryphius went off in 1621, when he was five years old, in his hometown of Glogau in time to Habsburg belonging Lower Silesia to school. At the latest in 1628 he had to break off this school visit because he left the city with his Lutheran family during the forced recatholization of Glogau and fled with many religious companions to confessionally tolerant Poland. In 1631 his stepfather Michael Eder († 1648) - his father Paul had died in 1621 - became a Lutheran pastor in Fraustadt, Poland , and from 1632 Gryphius was able to attend the Protestant high school there. On May 16, 1634, the Fraustadt school time ended with a solemn graduation ceremony, and on July 26, 1634 Gryphius enrolled in the highly respected, semi-university academic high school in Danzig .

Gryphius' first known poem was written in Fraustadt, the Latin epic Herodis Furiæ & Rahelis lachrymæ - Herod's anger and Rachel's tears , which spins out the story of Matthew's Gospel of Herod and the Bethlehemitic child murder in 1071 verses . Completed around Christmas 1633, it was printed in 1634 by Wigand Funck in Glogau. Gryphius dedicated it to his stepfather, his half-brother Paul (1601–1640) and the vice-principal of the Glogauer and director of the Fraustadt school, Jakob Rolle, who presumably paid for the printing costs. The continuation of Herod's first epic, 1204 verses, Dei Vindicis Impetus et Herodis Interitus - God's storm of vengeance and Herod's downfall , which was printed in Rethe in Danzig in 1635 and which Gryphius dedicated to the Gdansk councilors, was also probably still in Fraustadt .

While Gryphius' training, like his own poetry, had previously concentrated on Latin, he came into contact with German-language literature in Danzig, especially with Martin Opitz's " Book of German Poetry " , which was reprinted in Danzig in 1634. Johann Mochinger, who taught rhetoric in Danzig , was in contact with Opitz. In Danzig Gryphius also met the wealthy lawyer and writer Georg Schönborner (1579–1637). Schönborner promoted him, and Gryphius thanked him with a Latin poem of praise of 420 hexameters "Parnassus renovatus" - "Renewed Parnassus ", printed in 1636 by Rethe in Danzig. From 1636 Gryphius worked for about a year and a half as tutor of Schönborner's two sons on his estate near Freystadt in Lower Silesia . On November 30, 1637, Schönborn solemnly crowned Gryphius as Poeta laureatus . When Schönborner died shortly afterwards, Gryphius accompanied the sons - in the middle of the Thirty Years' War - to the University of Leiden . He stayed there for six years and then went on a major educational and study trip that took him to Italy and, in 1646, to Strasbourg .

In 1637, the year of his coronation as a poet, the “Lissa Sonnets” appeared in Lissa, in the original “ANDREAE GRYPHII SONNETE”. Gryphius wrote them in Danzig and on Schönborner's estate. Printer was again Wigand Funck, who had meanwhile also been forced to move to Poland. Parallel to the “Lissa Sonnets” and later in Leiden, Gryphius wrote 100 Sunday and holiday sonnets (65 Sunday sonnets and 35 holiday sonnets), printed in 1639 as “Sundays and Feyrtags Sonnets” by Elsevier in Leiden.

Lore

The Lissa edition must have been small, because when Victor Manheimer got a reprint in 1904, only the Wroclaw City Library had a copy. It is now in the Wroclaw University Library . The Lissa edition is abbreviated in the research literature edition Li .

The “Son and Feyrtags Sonnete” from 1639 are referred to as issue A in the research literature.

Gryphius worked on the sonnets all his life. First he rearranged 29 of the 31 sonnets from Lissa, revised them heavily, added 21 new ones and left the collection of 50 sonnets in 1643 in Leiden under the title “ANDREAE GRYPHII SONNETE. The first book. ”( Edition B ).

In 1646 he prepared the first complete edition of his works in Strasbourg, which was supposed to contain two books of 50 sonnets each and the 100 Sunday and holiday sonnets, but remained incomplete and was printed in 1650 by Johann Hüttner in Frankfurt am Main without authorization. It is divided into 50 sonnets - corresponding to the "Lissa Sonnets" and edition B - in a "First Book", 50 new sonnets in a "Other Book", 58 Sunday sonnets in a "Third Book" and then breaks off ( Edition C ).

The first authorized complete edition with all four sonnets was brought out in 1657 by Johann Lischke in Breslau. The "First Book" and the "other book" in accordance with the 'C' . This is followed by 64 Sunday sonnets in a “Third Book” and 36 holiday sonnets in a “Fourth Book” ( Edition D ).

In 1663 a final edition was published by Johann Erich Hahn in Leipzig in 1663 , structured like D ( edition E ).

When finally in 1698, 34 years after the poet's death, his son Christian (1649–1706) organized a new edition of the works in the Fellgiebel publishing house in Breslau and Leipzig, he included 71 sonnets from the estate ( edition F ).

Victor Manheimer was the first to have the “Lissa Sonnets” reprinted. He added the variants of all later editions in footnotes. Marian Szyrocki has arranged for a more recent print as part of a complete edition of the German-language works. Szyrocki also prints Edition B as well as the “Other Book” of Edition C in its entirety and later versions in footnotes, as well as the Sunday and holiday sonnets and the estate sonnets. Thomas Borgstedt, however each will print the latest issue, namely, the "first" and the "other book" fully and on Sundays and holidays sonnets in selection according to the final edition ( E ) and the estate sonnets in selection according F .

content

The content is reproduced from Szyrocki's 1963 reprint.

dedication

Follow the title page (picture)

  • the dedication (here without line breaks)

The Woledlen / Gestrengen / Ehr = vnd Tugentsamen Frawen EVAE drilled Pezoltin / Frawen on Schönborn and Zissendorff. Likewise, those honorable and virtuous women MARIAE Rißmannin / des honorable and esteemed M. MICHAELIS EDERI beloved wives. MARIAE Judge / of the well- loved Mr. M. PAULI GRYPHII . Annæ Greyffin / of 0honor 0= 0fixed Mr. George Carsen's beloved Haußfrawen. his especially honored Frawen / mother / aunties and sister.

  • and the dedicatory verses

You flowers of our time / virtue is highly
adorned / the fear of God is punished / honor and discipline reigns /
Nembt willingly from me / the small deposit /
But a thankful Hertz himself puts it in Ewre's hands /
You are defended by the I am desired peace /
When the dread happiness hurts me with its arrow /
Vnnd grimly plopped up at me: You are the trusty hold
Help me and rescue both / because I want to sink:
You are by what favor I now remain so calm:
And pass away the hardship of the difficult time without need;
You two, the high fame should always go with me /
As long as my soul will stand in my heart.
In a nutshell, I want to swing myself much higher;
Vnd Ewrer Virtue Praise / Sing with a free mouth.
Shawt under the diß / If wey smoke is not present;
So you strew barley with salt / the Juno on the altar

Your Gestr. vnd EE
Most willing
ANDREAS 0GRYPHIU S.
  • Eva von Schönborn born Pezelt was the wife of Gryphius' patron Georg Schönborner.
  • Maria Eder born Rissmann was the second wife of Gryphius' stepfather Michael Eder. She married Eder after Gryphius' mother Anna died in 1628 - Andreas had been an orphan ever since. Maria and Michael Eder had six children, all of whom were either born dead or died shortly after birth. Maria Eder viewed Andreas as her own child. She died on February 2, 1637 when the Lissa sonnets were in print. On this occasion, Andreas added a German and a Latin poem to the collection (see below).
  • Maria Gryphius b. Richter was the wife of Gryphius' half-brother Paul.
  • Anna Greyff, who married the "honorable Mr. George Carsens", was a half-sister of the poet.

“What the poet owed to the four women was primarily material support, which he received either directly from them or from their husbands.” In the closing verse, “In a nutshell, I want to swing myself much higher; / Vnd Ewrer Virtue Praise / Sing with a free mouth ”, Gryphius suggests great poetic plans, perhaps the Sunday and holiday sonnets on which he worked, or the increase in the“ Lissa sonnets ”to 50 in the“ First Book “ Of edition B realized.

The 31 sonnets

All sonnets except one are in the 1624 Opitz in the "Book of the German Poeterey" recommended for sonnets meter of Alexandrian written with the recommended also by Opitz rhyme scheme "ABBA ABBA" for the quartets and "CCD EED" for the trios . The verses with the “A” and “D” rhymes are thirteen syllable, the rhymes are feminine , the verses with the “B”, “C” and “E” rhymes are twelve syllable, the rhymes are masculine . Only the sonnet [II.] "Vber des LORD JESUS ​​Gefännüß." Differs slightly in that the first two verses of the second trio take up the "B" rhyme, the rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA CCD BBD. The poems are not numbered in the original. The numbering in brackets follows Manheimer and Szyrocki. The division into groups follows Borgstedt and largely agrees with Manheimer.

Spiritual sonnets

“To GOD the Holy Spirit” in Lissa print

The sonnet with the slightly different rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA CCD BBD (see above).

The sonnet is the adaptation of a neo-Latin poem by the Polish Jesuit Maciej Sarbiewski .

  • [IV.] The corpse of the LORD JESUS ​​dead.

The sonnet is the adaptation of a neo-Latin poem by the German Jesuit Jakob Bidermann

  • [v.]. Remembrance of Loth's wife. Lucae 17th BC 32.

The title is taken from the Gospel of Luke : “Think of Lot's wife!” ( Lk 17.32  EU ) The sonnet is the adaptation of a neo-Latin poem by the Dutch Jesuit Bernardus Bauhusius (1575–1619). Like Lot, man should follow the will of God; Lot's wife, who acted against God, became a pillar of salt: "She feels / that tears = saltz running out of your eyes / soon freezes in Saltz too / before she thinks right / So your folly will be atoned for with wise tautness."

Vanitas sonnets

According to the date of February 1636, research dates the disease to Gryphius' time in Danzig.

  • [VIII.] The world's lust is never without pain.
  • [IX.] Human misery .

Sonnets with an autobiographical reference

  • [X.]
The author was born on September 29th. of the CIↃ IↃ CXVI year.

AS I the world’s misery should first step
And nothing but fear of need / one was worthy here;
Bring me Jesus with thy angels.
By the supervision! (whether my foot has to slide
so much / that the grave is often prepared for me)
I am still horrified many thousands of times /
You have assured my mind that this is bright and clear.
Because you would guide me into life that day /
On which the angel = Printz triumphs the Teuffel.
O who led me so strangely
Give that the goal of life / if I still run here /
Through this guardian protection may I be sure:
And when the last day of death falls now
So let me go cheerfully to your angels.

A sonnet of your own birth. It is the only one apart from the “Sonnet decision” (XXXI., See below; and apart from the dedication and the mourning poems on the occasion of the death of the stepmother) that Gryphius did not have reprinted later. Gryphius was born on October 2, 1616, not September 29. Manheimer has explained the contradiction. "Gryphius addresses the sonnet to Jesus, 'Because you would lead me into life on the day when the angel = Printz triumphs the Teuffel.'" But the holiday of the prince angel, Michael the Archangel , is September 29th. To enable the punch line of the poem, Gryphius backdated his birthday three days. Later he was uncomfortable with the pious mystification. “Gryphius himself seems to have recognized the childlike in his more mature years and only therefore secreted his beautiful poem. He was satisfied that his eldest son, whom he named Christian after a brother who died prematurely, was actually born on September 29th. "

  • [XI.] TUMULUS Reverend. Clarissimique Dni PAULI GRYPHII, THEOLOGI Ut suspiciendâ docendi assiduitate Sic imitanda vivendi sanctimoniâ Pollentissimi Parentis longè desideratissimi. Obiit Glogoviae Major: ubi docuerat Anno AEtat. LX. hebdom. 10. Officii XL Christi MDCXXI. January 5th.

A sonnet epitaph for the father Paul, died January 5, 1621.

  • [XII.] TUMULUS Foeminae ωαν αρέ˥ 8 ANNAE ERHARDINAE Matris dulcissimae. Obiit Aetatis XXXVI. Christ MDCXXVIII. XXI. Martij.

A sonnet epitaph for the mother Anna geb. Erhard, died on March 21, 1628.

  • [XIII.] In bibliothecã & Effigiem Nobilis. Excellentiss: Magnificentisque DN. GEORGII SCHONBORNERI in Schönborn% Zissendorff. JVDS Caes. Maj. Consiliar. Comitis Palat. & c. & c.

A sonnet on the library of Georg Schönborner. It was a major attraction for Gryphius during his time on Schönborner's estate.

  • [XIV.] Author ad librum. Quem Genere, Ingenio, Eruditione Virtute Excellentiss. DN. MICHAELEM BORCK. Reipubl. Gedanensis Secretar. fidels. adire cheers.

Michael Borck (1579–1658) was the city secretary in Danzig.

  • [XV.] Omni Eruditione & Virtute Eminentissimo Domino M. PETRO CRUGERO Mathematico Dantiscano, per Orbem celeberrimo. cum ei accommodata Epitaphia restituerem.

Peter Crüger was a professor of mathematics, astronomy and poetry at the Academic Gymnasium Danzig, the only professor in Danzig to whom Gryphius dedicated a poem. "Another time Gryphius Crügers sings about Podagra , which probably suggests a very family relationship between the two."

  • [XVI.] Reverendo Clariss. Doctissimoque Domino M. MICHAELI EDERO Eccelsie de se bene meritiss.

A sonnet to his stepfather.

  • [XVII.] In Reverendi Clariss. Doctissimique Domini M. PAULI GRYPHII Ecclesie Eleuteropolitanae Pastoris Vigilantiss. Fratris honorandiss. Exilium falsò absenti ninciatũ.

A sonnet to his half-brother.

  • [XVIII.] About his spiritual guilt = book. Anno CIↃ IↃ CXXXVI Dominicâ 22nd Trinity. explicated.

Paul Gryphius had written a sermon about the book in which the sins of the people are recorded: "DE's strict judge's book / book so full of sins."

  • [XIX.] According to a distinguished jurist, grave = stone.

It could mean Schönborner.

Praise of beauty

From edition B of 1643 the sonnet "An Eugenien." Is overwritten. It praises petrarkisierend her beauty, wisdom, piety, humility and kindness. The name is fictional. Research has related the poem to the then 14-year-old Elisabeth Schönborner, Georg Schönborner's daughter, who presented Gryphius with the poet's laurel in 1637.

This sonnet, too, is entitled “An Eugenien.” From issue B onwards . It reminds them of their impermanence. "We have come from mother = body to doom."

Friendship sonnets for fellow students

  • [XXII.] At the request of Mr. Joachim Specht's noble Medici and Philosophi wedding Anno CIↃ IↃ CXXXVI.

Specht came from Glogau. His life data are unknown.

  • [XXIII.] Upon Mr. Gottfried Eich = horns JC. vnnd Jungfraw Rosinae Stoltzin wedding. A. CIↃ IↃ CXXXVII. d. Jan. 20

Gottfried Eichhorn (1603–1667) was later the councilor of the princes of Liegnitz .

  • [XXIV.] To Joannem Fridericum von Sack. Anno CIↃ IↃ CXXXVI d. June 24th. Shortly before the author left Prussia.

Gryphius dedicated the 65 Sunday Sonnets from 1639 to him.

Ridiculous sonnets

  • [XXV.] To a virgin.

From issue B of 1643, the poem is headed with a fictional personal name "To Lucinden." The beauty of the woman is extolled in a petrarkic way, but the admirer is spoiled: the delicate mouth is a quiver full of arrows, the beautiful hair is cords of love, the lightning that shines from the bare chest is scorched.

From issue B of 1643 the title is "Threnen des Vaterlandes / Anno 1636". It is “one of the best-known, perhaps the best-known sonnets by Gryphius”, written in 1636, as can also be seen from the Lissa version: “Three times six years have been flood / from so many corpses difficult / slowly advanced” - 18 Years have passed since the start of the war in 1618.

  • [XXVII.] To one of his friends / who entered into premature marriage.

From issue B of 1643 - as with the three following poems with fictitious personal names - “To Poetum. Anno CIↃ IↃ CXXXVII “. Character weaknesses are ridiculed in all four poems.

  • [XXVIII.] To a woman with makeup.

From issue B of 1643 "An Iolinden."

  • [XXIX.] To a honorable and more than clever person.

From issue B of 1643 "To Melanien."

  • [XXX.] To a wrong two = livelier.

From issue B of 1643 “An Furium”.

  • [XXXI.]
Sonnet decision.

I had more before my fist; but who thar write something here
When a fraw is denied a linen cloth
Into the grave and when she hardly has the other / the maid
Assume a hundred thalers / that they help to drive him to Eyl
through lies or yes through testimony
Hencker in his hand; vñ no poverty complains here
Who would otherwise not venture a Kreutzer for God;
Would she like you to remain rebuked.
So it goes back and forth; one sins freely into it /
Gantz without fear and shame / and no one should be /
Who says what everyone does / village publicly tell /
For truth melts and travels; but often comes to day /
That which, according to many senses, was deeply hidden /
And truth must never be missing / Lufft / Red / and Freyheit.

As [X.] “The author about his birth day September 29th. of the CIↃ IↃ CXVI year. ”The poem is missing in the reprints of Gryphius' time because, according to Szyrocki, it can only be understood in the context of the Lissa sonnets. “I had MORE in front of my fist” - in 1637 the poet would have had more to say. The allegory of the insidious wife suggests what prevented him. She stands for Habsburg, the man whom she denied the shroud, for the Silesian Protestants, the sword for the compulsion of re-Catholicization. The last line, the final chord of the Lissa collection, opposed the political and religious repression with the demand for freedom for the truthfulness of the poetic word: “And truth must never be missing / Lufft / Red / vnd Freyheit.” The “SONNET decision” ends in a similar way. the "Son and Feyrtags Sonnete" from 1939: "So what you suppress, whoever you are dead will live."

Poems on the death of the stepmother and imprint

On the occasion of Maria Eder's death, Gryphius added a German mourning poem in Alexandrians to his book:

Manibus Beatiss.
Foeminae Pietate, Virtute Modestia, Suavitate Floridißimae
MARIAE RISMANNIAE
Parentis Dulcissimae Desideratissimaeque;

Aetatis Anno 25. Christi 1637. February 2nd ad caelica aeternitatis palatiae evocata.

Oh what a thunderstorm I got running through Hertz!
Fraw mother! oh so early! so suddenly! oh so soon!
Oh, my body and soul will be severed through and through!
I feel the blood flowing in all my limbs.
What do I hear! O your crown! O ornament of chaste Frawen!
O all virtue lies! O flower of this world!

54 more verses follow. Like his mother in the epitaph to her, Sonnet [XXII.], Gryphius here becomes the stepmother, the epitome of virtue. The German is followed by a Latin mourning poem in 57 hexameters . At the end of the book you will find the place of publication and printer (see picture).

composition

Gryphius strove for cycles of poetry , above all an order according to salvation-historical aspects. Spiritual poems belonged at the top, among them again an invocation of the Holy Spirit , replacing the ancient invocation of the Muses . When Gryphius later increased his sonnets to the desired number 100, 50 in the "First" and 50 in the "Other Book", they formed a thematically and compositionally one unit. As at the beginning of the “First Book”, there were spiritual poems - about death, the Last Judgment , Hell, the “Eternal Joy of the Unselected” and the prophet Elijah - mirrored at the end of the “Other Book”. Most of the sonnets in between concern, according to Mauser, with an expression from Gryphius' “Morgen Sonnet”, “the life of this world”. “The salvation-historical framework of the sun forms the spiritual and religious background of all poems in the collection. It must be taken into account when interpreting every sonnet. <...> This applies to the wedding, death, dedication and maiden sonnets as well as to the sonnets that are linked to certain historical events <...>. The sonnets in their great variety are intended to be examples of how the various appearances of life with regard to Christ and Christian truths are to be understood and interpreted. "

Gryphius also based the “Lissa Sonnets” according to Szyrocki on a number symbolism . Each line of the book title

ANDREAE
GRYPHII,
SONNETE.

contain 7 letters, together 21; each line contains 3 syllables, together 9. The sum of the letters and syllables results in 30 - all “God's numbers”. 30 is also the number of sonnets (without the “Sonnet decision”) and the number of letters in the poem's title “VANITAS, VANITATUM, ET OMNIA VANITAS”, which could be the motto of the entire collection. The "7" also played an important role in the Herod epics. The "7" is "the number of the mystery, the revelation, the truth": Joseph's dream of the seven fat and the seven lean cows, the "seven churches in the province of Asia" ( Rev 1,4  EU ), the book with the seven seals , the seven angels and seven trumpets of the Revelation of John ( Rev 8 : 1-2  EU ). “With Gryphius, the 7 appears together with the 3 on the title page. This allows the following interpretation: The sonnets are to a certain extent a kind of divine (3) revelation (7), that is, a divine, that is, an objective proclamation of truth. "

In particular, Szyrocki finds the following symmetry: Dedication verses. - 5 sonnets about redemption ([I.] to [V.]). - 4 sonnets about transience ([VI.] | To [IX.]). - 3 sonnets about the kingdom of heaven or the Gryphius family ([X.] to [XII.]). - 6 sonnets about patrons ([XIII.] To [XVIII.]). - 3 sonnets about wisdom or the Schönborner family ([XIX.] To [XX1.]). - 4 sonnets about love ([XXII.] To [XXV.]). - 5 sonnets about decay of the world ([XXVI.] To [XXX.]). - closing verses. Szyrocki's interpretation is largely accepted in research. An allegory of numbers can also be seen in the later editions of the sonnets.

literature

References and comments

  1. Borgstedt 2012, p. 216.
  2. Borgstedt 2012, p. 172.
  3. Borgstedt 2012, p. 202.
  4. Bogner 2016, p. 8.
  5. Czapla 2016, p. 69.
  6. Szyrocki 1959, p. 47.
  7. Borgstedt 2012, p. 203.
  8. Szyrocki 1959, p. 37.
  9. Szyrocki 1959, p. 82.
  10. Szyrocki 1963, p. 247.
  11. Bogner 2016, p. 10.
  12. Szyrocki 1959, p. 108.
  13. Szyrocki 1963, p. IX.
  14. On Manheimer see Sebastian Kötz: The forgotten library. Search for traces of the biography and book collection of Victor Manheimer. University and City Library Cologne, Cologne 2013. ISBN 978-3-931596-75-0 .
  15. Manheimer writes on p. 253: “The book that will be reprinted for the first time (= N) has been preserved in a single copy, which the Breslauer Stadtbibliothek has owned for several years (E 1710 n )”.
  16. Manheimer 1904.
  17. Szyrocki 1963.
  18. Borgstedt 2012.
  19. After Manheimer; at Szyrocki misprint "me".
  20. Szyrocki 1963, p. 245.
  21. ^ Next to "Greif" the family name used before and next to the Latinization of "Gryphius".
  22. Manheimer 1904, p. 212.
  23. Szyrocki 1959, p. 89.
  24. Borgstedt 2016, pp. 95–96.
  25. Manheimer 1904, p. 230.
  26. Szyrocki 1963, p. 7.
  27. Manheimer 1904, p. 213.
  28. Szyroki 1959, p. 115.
  29. Borgstedt 2012, p. 172.
  30. Sryrocki 1959, p. 78.
  31. In Issue B of 1643, Gryphius corrected the rhythm: "DE's strict judge's book / the book so full of sins."
  32. Szyrocki 1963, p. 247.
  33. Borgstedt 2012, p. 173.
  34. Borgstedt 2012, p. 173.
  35. Szyrocki 1959, p. 102.
  36. Hans Magnus Enzensberger comments in Andreas Gryphius / Gedichte. Insel-Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1962: “who thar: who dares; von Türren: dare. "
  37. Szyrocki 1959, pp. 85-86.
  38. Szyrocki 1963, p. 181.
  39. Szyrocki 1963, p. 65.
  40. Mauser 1997, p. 30.
  41. Szyrocki 1959, p. 85.
  42. The "Sonnet decision" is not counted and the sonnets [XX.] And [XXI.] Are interpreted as referring to the daughter of Georg Schönborner.
  43. Hugo Bekker tries to correct it, see literature.
  44. Knöll 2016.