Night thoughts
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Night Thoughts is the twenty-fourth and final poem from Heinrich Heine's Zeitgedichte cycle, published in 1844 . The famous opening verse
- "If I think of Germany at night / Then I am brought to sleep"
has become a household word .
Description and interpretation
Heine wrote the poem in his exile in Paris. At that time the Central European states found themselves in a general pre-revolutionary situation, which was to lead to the revolutions of 1848 in Germany and France, among others . In the German states there was political resistance against the repressive regime set up by the Congress of Vienna and against small states .
In the first stanza of Night Thoughts , Heine describes as a lyrical self that the thought of Germany leads to insomnia in him and makes him cry. Surprisingly, there is no direct analysis of the political situation in Germany in the following stanzas. Rather, the ego deals with its old, beloved mother who lives in Germany, who has not seen it for 12 years and with whom it is in correspondence. The ego prays to God for the mother for a long life. In contrast to its mother, the country of Germany calls the self in words that are ironic , “perfectly healthy”, “with its oaks and linden trees”; it also says:
“I don't thirst so much for Germany if my
mother weren't there;
The fatherland will never perish, but
the old woman can die. "
This thought culminates in the memory of the ego, and mourning for the many loved ones who died during his twelve years of exile in his homeland; it feels to him "as if corpses are rolling" on his chest. This idea is only dispelled when the sun rises in France in the morning and the beautiful woman of the self appears and smiles at it.
Although Heine did not count himself among the poets of the Vormärz , Zeitgedichte is considered a work of this political-literary movement. The German scholar Helmut Koopmann assumes that Heine is lonely in Paris: “Sitting on the edge, no longer part of society, but at best its critics”. Works like Night Thoughts and Germany are only from this situation of a pariah . A winter fairy tale understandable.
Newer adaptations
The phrase "Thinking of Germany" has often been used as a title, for example for books, essays, newspaper articles or the TV series of ARD Thinking of Germany ... With the poem title, u. a. named the series of television programs at the end of the broadcast night thoughts with Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff .
output
- Heinrich Heine. Historical-critical complete edition of the works , edited by Manfred Windfuhr , Volume 2, Hamburg 1983, pages 129–130
literature
- Helmut Koopmann: "Night Thoughts", on Heinrich Heine's poem "I think of Germany in the night", in the International Hugo Wolf Academy for Singing, Poetry, Lied Art: Of Poetry and Music. Heinrich Heine, a reading book , Schneider, Tutzing 1995, pages 39-61
- Marcel Reich-Ranicki : Frankfurt anthology: Gedichte u. Interpretations , Insel, Frankfurt 1976, page 117 ff.
Web links
- Night Thoughts in the Heinrich Heine Portal
- Heinrich Heine: I think of Germany at night. In: Freiburg anthology - poetry and song. Archived from the original on February 6, 2013 ; accessed on April 29, 2020 .
- "Night Thoughts" spoken and animated with kinetic typography (YouTube)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Manfred Windfuhr: Comments on Nachtgedanken ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in ders. (Ed.): Historical-critical complete edition of the works , Volume 2, 1983, page 760
- ↑ Helmut Koopmann: Home, Foreign and Exile in the 19th Century, in Hans-Jörg Knobloch, Helmut Koopmann (Ed.): The sleepy 19th century? , Königshäuser & Neumann, 2005, page 33
