Townspeople
Städter is an expressionist sonnet by Alfred Wolfenstein from 1914.
The poem addresses the loneliness and anonymity of people in the big city . The spatial confinement in the big city forces its residents on the one hand to have close encounters, on the other hand it is precisely this close cooperation that is responsible for the fact that the residents become more and more alienated. They live at a seemingly insurmountable distance from one another. The situation described in the poem in the big city at the beginning of the 20th century in Berlin has hardly changed until today. Still and even more so today, anonymity and isolation are almost proverbial in the big city.
Well-known editions of the poem "Städter"
There are two different versions of the poem Städter : The first publication in "The Godless Years" from 1914, and the second version in the Twilight of Man by Kurt Pinthus , 1920.
Poem analysis (second version)
Content and structure
The first stanza describes the general situation in the city, namely the narrowness, with the transition from the small details, the windows, which are "close together like holes in a sieve" (v. 1 f.), To the larger panoramic view. The windows are so close together because the houses are so extremely close together (cf. v. 2 f.) That the streets are more or less compressed and look "swollen gray" like "choked" (v. 3 f.). The second stanza, however, speaks less of the inanimate elements of the city than of the inhabitants of this city in general. They are shown in a typical and significant situation, namely in the tram, where people sit opposite each other like “facades” (v. 6) without a word, although “closely hooked into one another” (v. 5), that is, close together, but without really make contact with each other. Only the eyes wander, trying to spread out in the narrowness (cf. v. 7), an expression of the “desire” (v. 8), which is hidden behind the apparent lack of emotion. This tram metaphor is intended to symbolize the entire oppressive life in the city, not just the journey on the tram.
After this general representation of the city and its inhabitants, the third stanza changes to the level of the personal, which is shown above all by the fact that a lyrical self now appears. This I appears only once in the entire poem, namely in the second verse of the first trio (v. 10). It gives a city dweller (city dweller) the voice and causes the reader to sympathize with the feelings and thoughts of the city dweller. The change in perspective from the impersonal “she” of the two quartets to the “I” and “we” of the first trio is also evident from the “lyrical we” in the ninth verse, which expresses a kind of “community of fate”. The walls of the houses are compared to the thin skin (v. 9) that the townspeople themselves have. The city dweller is very much like his house. The narrowness results in indiscretion. “Everyone participates” (v. 10) when there is weeping, but it is just an anonymous listening without real sympathy. The noises of the city dwellers, even their slightest noise, the whisper, become loud enough to echo through the thin walls of the house like yelling. But it could also be that the whispering from the neighboring apartment only sounds like grumbling to the city dweller (v. 11) because he is afraid of being noticed unpleasantly due to the clairaudience of the walls. Inwardly, the townspeople sit in silence in black, closed caves (v. 12) and wait for someone to open them (v. 13). You don't dare to step out of this isolation of your own accord.
The whole poem boils down to its last word, the word "alone" (v. 14). It makes clear what the poem wants to point out: the loneliness of people in the big city. The first and last word of the poem “close” or “near” in the second version (v. 1) and “alone” (v. 14) are in opposition to each other. By comparing the two terms, the reader recognizes that the city dwellers suffer from great loneliness despite their spatial proximity to one another. The real subject is, as the title of the poem suggests, the city dweller. Wolfenstein not only illuminates the city, but rather criticizes people as guilty of their fate.
External form and its effect
The formal division corresponds to the two quartets of the sonnet : the general and general are described in the two quartets of the sonnet , while the effects on the individual and his feelings are shown in the trios . The sonnet is designed regularly: a 5-note trochaeus is used almost throughout , only verse 13 is shorter with four notes . In particular, it centers on one of the key messages of the poem in terms of content: the great loneliness of the city dwellers. In the quartets there is an embracing rhyme scheme ([abba cddc]), which could be a formal expression for the confined and hopeless of urban life. In the trios there is a rhyme scheme across stanzas, the rhyme sequence[efg gef] having.
The first stanza has an alternating cadence , first male (stressed), later female (unstressed) in the enclosed pair of rhymes, followed by the second stanza with exactly the same pattern. The third and fourth stanzas have irregular cadences, the third stanza ends male - female - female, the fourth stanza ends female - male - female.
Linguistic and stylistic design tools and their function
Linguistically, the first and second stanzas express the close interweaving and entanglement of buildings and people in the city. Wolfenstein works here exclusively with comparisons , for example “standing as close as holes in a sieve…” (v. 1) and inversions : “houses push each other so closely” (v. 2-3). He consciously uses this reversal of the common word order in order to better symbolize the “upside down” world of the big city.
The poem begins abruptly with the inverted adjective “nah” (v. 1), which is emphasized due to the trochaic meter and thus additionally emphasized. If you examine the poem with regard to the word fields used, the elements of the city predominate (windows, houses, streets, trams, facades, walls). In connection with adjectives like “in each other” (vv. 5 and 8), “close” (vv. 3 and 5), “together”, “hooked in” and “swollen”, which all describe a feeling of being cramped, the city has an agoraphobic effect .
Through the use of personifications , objects are illustrated by representing them as imaginable people. This can be seen, among other things, in verses two to three (“houses are so tightly packed”). Houses can't touch each other. “Touching” is a purely human way of acting. The author uses the stylistic device of personification to make the situation of the confined space in the city tangible for the readers and to illustrate the threat of the whole scenario. Further personifications can be found in verses one to two ("stand windows next to each other") and verse three to four ("streets swollen gray"), each with the aim of bringing the houses of the big city to life.
In addition, there is an alliteration in the 1st stanza : "Gray, swollen, like see those who are choked" (v. 4). The stressed stem syllables of the two neighboring words "grau" and "schwollen" have the same initial sound "g". This audible conspicuity has the effect that the words are better remembered by the reader. The gray and dreary atmosphere in the city is highlighted even more clearly.
In verse two, Wolfenstein uses an oxymoron : "People where the looks are narrow" (v. 7). The successive terms “narrow” and “unload” contradict each other. However, this contradiction is deliberate and serves the pointed representation of the ambiguous content, in which the “as well as” of the facts is conceptually reflected. The people in the tram sit close and close, but they are still strangers. The same goes for the looks: the paradox of “tightly bulging” means that you look at each other, but still look past each other.
The phrase “hooked into one another” (v. 5) is a reification , since objects are hooked or assembled, but not people. This makes people appear cold and numb like objects. The facial expressions are also depersonalized (reified) and compared with “facades” (v. 6), ie the outer walls of buildings. People hide their feelings behind this facade in order to preserve their uniqueness.
With the help of several enjambements , Wolfenstein breaks through the monotony of meter . By spilling over the sentences to the next line of verse (cf. vv. 1-3 and v. 6), the context of meaning is continued across the line of verse, which in turn reflects the hectic pace and speed of the city. As the poem progresses, these enjambements become increasingly rare.
The third and fourth stanzas also change linguistically into the personal perspective. The language is clearly more emotional than in the two quartets, there is much talk of feelings “when I cry” (v. 10). Both thirds begin with comparisons. In verse 9 the walls of houses are compared to sensitive human skin: "Our walls are as thin as skin". The comparison conveys to the reader that the city dweller's innermost self is exposed due to the lack of privacy. In contrast to this, the comparison in verse 12 ("how mute in a closed cave") shows how the townspeople feel in their innermost being. He feels trapped in a locked cave.
A weighty antithesis becomes clear when one compares the second trio (fourth stanza) with the first (third stanza). The first trio deals with a kind of - albeit undesirable - closeness, the second the complete isolation of the individual "in a closed cave" (v. 12). But an anthitetic moment can already be recognized within the first trio, because “participation” (v. 10) is not to be understood in the sense of “participation”, but quite the opposite: no one participates when an isolated person begins to cry . Wolfenstein also worked antithetically when he juxtaposed the words “near” (v. 1) and “alone” (v. 14) by placing one word at the beginning of the poem and the other at the end. Through this comparison, he ensured that the contradiction of the two words is particularly emphasized.
In the last stanza of the poem, the author emphasizes the loneliness of the townspeople in a particularly memorable way. He succeeds in doing this, among other things, through the renewed use of alliterations in verses 13 (“untouched and unseen”) and 14 (“distant and feels”), ie by deliberately repeating the first letters of successive words.
The last verse of the poem is a grammatically incomplete sentence, a so-called ellipse . The word “oneself”, which can easily be added, has been left out in order to emphasize the central theme of loneliness. This is also done through the use of a colon , which separates and emphasizes the last word of the poem "alone" (v. 14).
Differences between the two poem versions
The two versions of the poem differ only slightly from each other. Wolfenstein made small improvements, but no major changes. Inconsistencies such as the double use of the words “dense” in the first stanza disappear. In the last stanza, the word "still" is replaced by "mute". Mute as a state of complete inability to articulate by means of spoken language is much better suited to depicting a self-contained individual than a subject that may only be temporarily silent. Formally, it is noticeable that the 13th verse in the original version is designed as a 5-point trochaeus in accordance with the other verses; only in the new version does this verse contain a 4-point meter. The metaphor “their close glances bathe one another” (v. 7 - 8) gives way in the new version to the oxymoron “where the glances are narrow” (v. 7). In a metaphorical way, the lyrical self of the first version reports how people eye one another. By transferring the word "bathe" from the area of swimming or personal hygiene to the area of sensory perception, the reader is unconsciously astonished and thought-provoking. Despite this mode of action, Wolfenstein decided to use an oxymoron even more effectively.
Wolfenstein's feeling of the big city
Wolfenstein was dominated by the feeling of the big city in all of his work. He expresses this in his handwritten résumé from 1921:
“I came - in the country and then grew up in the small town of Dessau - to Berlin when I was eighteen. Berlin became one of the thorns for the great conflict between human affection and loneliness, the other is my Judaism. "
“Then the city, the master builder of man, taught me what one learns. I climbed up with some of their big tethered balloons, which are filled with the gas of a common ground that is not too high. Above it wavered from incorrect patheticism (from wanting the possible). Below the streams ran around without a sea. So the Ringstrasse, like the old Okeanos clueless and around the own first world, everyone ends. My poetry, received with whips in its childlike elements, began to fight there. "