Noon (Gryphius)
Noon is a sonnet by Andreas Gryphius . It was first published in 1650 in Frankfurt am Main in Gryphius' sonnet collection "Das Ander Buch" . It is there after the “ morning sonnet ” the second of the four sonnets of the time of day cycle that opens the book. During Gryphius' lifetime it was reprinted with the “Ander Buch” in 1657 in the first authorized complete edition and in 1663 in a final edition with changes.
The 1650 version was reprinted in 1963 in Volume 1 of a complete edition of the German-language works for which Marian Szyrocki and Hugh Powell were responsible, the 1663 version in 2012 by Thomas Borgstedt. The following texts originate from these editions, which only differ significantly in verse 9.
text
Noon. (1650)
AVff friends! last vns to the table where the sun shines in the middle of the sky And the world, weary from heat and work, seeks to partake of our day away. The flower ornament is damaged by the flaming pipes. Too hard / the außgedörtte field Wündscht after the Taw 'the reaper after the tent No bird complains of its love ropes. The light reigns / the black shadow flies into a hell / into which the shame and fear compel to hide. You can escape the glitz of the day! But not to the light / that / where we always stand / Vns sees and right / and bright 'and digs through.
Noon. (1663)
Off to friends! let us rush to the table / in which the sun holds the middle of the sky and the world weary of heat and work seeks its way / and to share our day. The Zir flowers are damaged too hard by the flaming pipes / the parched field Wündscht after the dew / the reaper after the tent; No bird complains of its Libes ropes. Now there is the light. The black shadow flees into a hell / in which crouches / the shame and fear forces itself to hide. You can escape the glamor of the day! But not the light / that / wherever we stand / Vns sees and judges / and light and crypt penetrates.
interpretation
shape
While Gryphius had written his first German-language poems, the Lissa sonnets of 1637, exclusively in the meter of the Alexandrian , he used the iambic five-pounder in the form of the verse commun for the first time in his sonnet session "Das Erste Buch" from 1643 :
Until now I have the old cold world /
So far I have loved vanity.
Verse commun is also the meter of "noon". The rhyme scheme is “abba abba” for the quartets and “ccd eed” for the trios . The verses with the “a” and “d” rhymes have eleven syllables, the rhymes feminine , the verses with the “b”, “c” and “e” rhymes are ten syllable, therefore here according to the editions of Szyrocki and Borgstedt indented, the rhymes masculine :
- ◡ — ◡— ‖ ◡ — ◡ — ◡— (◡)
AVff friends! last vns to the table /
In which the sun holds in the middle of the sky.
But the Alexandrians predominate in the “First Book” and “Other Book”.
Nature image
Like the “Morning Sonnet”, “Noon” begins with a picture of nature. In the "Morning Sonnet" the description of nature was fresh, hopeful, cheerful:
<...> the dawn laughs
The grawen sky / the gentle wind awakens /
Vnd urges the feathers to say hello / the new day.
The nature in “Mittag” is quite different. The light, greeted with joy in the “Morning Sonnet”, becomes threatening. Under the sun, which is at the zenith of the “heaven mean”, the world is dull from heat and work. The plants wither under the "flaming pipes". The parched ground longs for dew. Summarizing and at the same time continuing the threat, at the beginning of the first trio, “like a clap of thunder”, the sentence: “The light rules” (1650) or “Itzt the light rules” (1663). His rule is not only threatened, as the quartets described, by scorching heat, but also, as the first trio continues, by making visible what wants or should remain hidden. Those who “shame and fear compel themselves to hide” hide from light. This introduces the allegorical interpretation.
Christian allegory
An important approach to Gryphius' poems is their allegorical interpretation in the sense of his Lutheran- Christian piety. So also for the “Morning Sonnet” and the “Noon” sonnet. In the trio of the “Morning Sonnet”, the self, tuned by nature in the morning, begs God for enlightenment through his light, a life in his service and eternal bliss:
Give / that I may dine this day / in your alone
Feeder; and when my end and that day falls
That I may give you my sun / my light forever.
Also in “Mittag” the trios transmute the realities in transcendence ”. However, here the interpretation is not a request with which the ego answers the call from nature, but a "pointed, sententious statement of a warning character, an unsaid 'hoc monet' 'that connects representation and interpretation":
You can escape the glitz of the day! But not to the light / that / where we always stand / Vns sees and right / and bright 'and digs through.
Man can escape the light of the heavenly body, the sun, but not the light of God, who “sees and judges”, sees us as an omniscient God and can punish us as judges.
The symbols of the burning-scorching light for God's wrath and the penetrating light for his omniscience reach back to the Old Testament and are used constantly in the Middle Ages and early modern times. Examples are (Bible quotes from the Luther Bible from 1545 followed by the revised version from 2017):
- from the Psalms : “LORD / How long will you be angry? And let your egg burn how fewr? "2017 ( Psalm 79,5 LUT ):" How long, Lord, will you be angry all the time? How long will your zeal burn like fire? "
- From the prophet Jeremiah : "That was why my anger and grim arose / and broke out over the city of Judah / and over the alleys of Jerusalem / which they have become desolate and desolate / as it is today." 2017 ( Jer 44, 6 LUT ): "Because of this my anger and rage also poured out, and was kindled over the cities of Judah and the alleys of Jerusalem, that they have become a desert and wasteland, as it is today."
- from the book of Hebrews : "Wherefore we, Because empfahen a vnbeweglich Reich / we have grace / by which we may serve God / jm fallen / with pedigree vnd fear / For vnser God is a fire: verzerend." 2017 ( Heb 12.28 to 29 LUT ): “Because we will receive a kingdom that will not be shaken, let us be thankful and so serve God with awe and fear as it pleases him; for our God is a consuming fire. "
- 1570, from the “Forest of Allegories from the Holy Scriptures” by Benedictine Hieronymus Lauretus , 1570: “Deus autem est Sol, cui manifesta sunt crimina” - “God is the sun to whom crimes are open”.
- 1610, from the second of the “ Four Books on True Christianity ” by the Lutheran theologian Johann Arndt : “When I walk in the flat field in daylight, such light completely surrounds me; if it were not physical but spiritual, it would permeate my spirit; so are all creatures, visible and invisible, before the eyes of God; it penetrates and encompasses all things, nothing prevents it: the darkness before it must be light like the day. "
- from the early 17th century an emblem by Francis Quarles with the signature "O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou wouldst keep me in secret until thy wrath be past!". The signature is based on the book of Job : "AH / that you covered me in the light / and hide until your anger subsides." 2017 ( Job 14:13 ESV ): "Oh that you wanted to keep and hide me in the realm of the dead, until your anger subsides. "
Other references
Allegorical interpretation should not become an end in itself, nor should it cover up other references. Noon, according to ancient counting from the sixth to the ninth hour, was the hour of darkness at the crucifixion of Jesus ( Mt 27.45 EU ): "From the sixth to the ninth hour there was darkness throughout the land." For the Greeks it was the hour of Pan sleeping in the silence of the sun-drenched landscape . "In one form or another, the idea of noon as an intensified, superhistorically condensed moment <...> runs through cultural history, be it as a phase of crisis transition, be it as a moment of tense calm." The sonnet describes this transition moment, in which the sun seeks to “divide your way and our day”. The transition seems strangely condensed, reality seems to be faded out in the shimmering silence, time itself to stand still by “ holding the sun in the middle of the sky ”. The poem itself becomes a higher form of transition, to transcendence, transcendentia par excellence. The poem is "the excellent place where existence comes to itself".
literature
- Thomas Borgstedt (Ed.): Andreas Gryphius. Poems. Reclam-Verlag , Stuttgart 2012. ISBN 978-3-15-018561-2 .
- Thomas Borgstedt: Sonnets. In: Nicola Kaminski, Robert Schütze (Ed.): Gryphius-Handbuch, pp. 90–112. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-022943-1 .
- Fritz G. Cohen: The "Times of the Day" Quartet of Andreas Gryphius: Convergence of Poetry and Meditation . In: Argenis . 2, No. 1-4, 1978, pp. 95-113.
- AG de Capua: Two Quartets: Sonnet Cycles by Andreas Gryphius . In: monthly books for German teaching . 59, No. 4, 1967, pp. 325-328.
- Heinz Drügh: Allegory. In: Nicola Kaminski, Robert Schütze (Ed.): Gryphius-Handbuch, pp. 604–614. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-022943-1 .
- Dietrich Walter Jöns: The "sensory image". Studies on allegorical imagery with Andreas Gryphius. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung , Stuttgart 1966.
- Nikolaus Lohse: “Diss life seems like a race track to me”. Poetological remarks on a sonnet cycle by Andreas Gryphius . In: Journal for German Philology . 110, No. 2, 1991, pp. 161-180.
- Victor Manheimer: The poetry of Andreas Gryphius. Studies and materials. Weidman Verlag , Berlin 1904.
- Marian Szyrocki: The young Gryphius. Rütten & Loening , Berlin 1959.
- Marian Szyrocki (Ed.): Andreas Gryphius. Sonnets. Max Niemeyer Verlag , Tübingen 1963.
References and comments
- ↑ Szyrocki 1963.
- ↑ Borgstedt 2012.
- ↑ Szyrocki 1963, pp. 65-66.
- ↑ Borgstedt 2012, p. 38.
- ↑ "To God the Holy Spirit", Sryrocki 1963, p. 29.
- ↑ Szyrocki 1963, p. 65.
- ↑ de Capua 1967, p. 326.
- ↑ Lohse 1991, p. 166.
- ↑ Gryphius may have revised the sentence in order to avoid the foreign word “governed” in accordance with baroque poetry rules - Manheimer 1904, p. 68 - and to shift “light” into the position of maximum emphasis - Cohen 1978, p. 106.
- ↑ Drügh 2016.
- ↑ De Capua 1967, p. 326.
- ↑ Jöns 1966, p. 168.
- ↑ Jons 1966, p. 170.
- ↑ Lohse 1991, p. 167.
- ↑ Lohse 1991, p. 169.