Romanzero
Romanzero is the title of Heinrich Heine 's third (the collection of poems by H. Heine , Berlin 1822, which is included in the book of songs , not counted) and last volume of poetry. It was published in 1851 by the Hoffmann und Campe publishing house in Hamburg .
Heine wrote most of the Romanzero's poems between 1848 and 1851. At that time, Heine was already very ill; He spent the last years of his life in his "mattress tomb" in Paris before succumbing in 1856 to his long and difficult illness. He himself suspected he might have syphilis , but research has shown that he likely died of chronic lead poisoning . Due to his physical impairment, he was forced to dictate many of his writings to his secretary, including (at least) parts of the Romanzero . 11 of the 64 poems in this collection were published before; overall, however, in contrast to his previous volumes of poetry, the Book of Songs and New Poems , Heine presented mostly new material for the first time.
The Romanzero is divided into three parts:
- In the Histories , Heine deals with historical events of various kinds, starting with an anecdote about the Egyptian King Rhampsenit and a thief, through characters such as King Charles I of England and Marie Antoinette , to the Aztec god Vitzliputzli .
- The lamentations mainly deal with illness, death and melancholy memories. One example is the relatively extensive poem Lazarus .
- The Hebrew Melodies consist of three poems with a specific Jewish theme: Princess Sabbath depicts the beauty and spiritual meaning of the day of rest in a pictorial and parable manner. Jehuda ben Halevi reports on the life of the Spanish poet and scholar of the same name, and finally the disputation of a medieval opinion contest between a rabbi and a Franciscan .
All three books are introduced by a two-verse poem in the rhyme of the cross, which contains a general wisdom of life.
One of the main concerns of the "Romanzero" concerns the exposure of grievances, which should be made clear to the people. Heine makes use of ironic stylistic devices, which he uses pointedly. In his often multi-part poems, he critically deals with topics related to society, politics, religion and literature or the literary future and in this context also with his own role as a poet. In his mythical, legendary and fairytale-like material, he integrates z. T. current political issues. That is why the Romanzero was banned in Austria as early as 1851; in Prussia the book was confiscated by the police.
See also
- Schlemihl , the figure from the "Romanzero", in other cultural history; Hannah Arendt on Heine's figure
literature
- Heinrich Heine: Romanzero . With an afterword, a time table on Heine, explanations and bibliographical references by Joachim Bark, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-442-07655-2
- Helene Herrmann: Studies on Heine's Romanzero . Weidmann, Berlin 1906
- Helmut Landwehr: The key to Heine's “Romanzero” . Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2001 (= Poetica. Writings on literary studies; Vol. 56), ISBN 978-3-8300-0316-8 ( full text )
- Bernd Kortländer (Ed.): Heinrich Heine: All poems . Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-15-018394-6
- Meinolf Schumacher : Doctors with the tongue. Licking dogs in European literature. From the patristic exegesis of the Lazarus parable (Lk. 16) to the 'Romanzero' Heinrich Heines (= Aisthesis Essay 16), Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2003, ISBN 3-89528-310-X
- Rochelle Tobias: Writers and Schlemihls. On Heine's Jehuda ben Halevy, in Aris Fioretos ed .: Babel. For Werner Hamacher . Urs Engeler, Basel 2009 ISBN 3-938767-55-3 SS 363-370 (this essay in English)
