Ulm 1592
Ulm 1592 is the title of a poem that was written by Bertolt Brecht in 1934 and published in 1937. In the poem, the worldviews of a bishop and a tailor face each other. The event took place in Ulm in southern Germany . The poem is one of the many calendar stories in Bertolt Brecht's book of the same name.
Emergence
The poem was written in connection with the tragic story of Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger . Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger showed an early interest in mechanical things. But he was forced to complete an apprenticeship as a tailor, although he would have preferred to become a watchmaker. In his spare time he was therefore also active as an inventor and was constantly tinkering with an aircraft. Friedrich I found out about Berblinger's activity and therefore wanted him to demonstrate his attempt to fly. The flight attempt started from a wall thirteen meters above the Danube . It ended with Berblinger crashing straight into the Danube and his attempt to fly failed miserably. This resulted in his social downfall and he was now known everywhere as a liar.
shape
The poem consists of two stanzas with eleven verses each, the last four lines of each stanza being similar. The poem contains both pair rhymes and cross rhymes . It is noticeable that in the first stanza of the poem the tailor is partly the lyrical self . Later the poem takes a turn in the sense of a narrative form. Thus, only an outsider would come into question as a lyrical I. As personifications in the poem are the tailor and the bishop who represent the two world views .
content
The main characters in the poem are the bishop and the tailor. In the first stanza the tailor claims that he can fly and climbed onto the church roof. The bishop went on and claims that man is not a bird and that man will never be able to fly. In the second stanza the tailor died because he jumped off the roof. He lies on the floor of the church square and the bishop repeats once more that man will never be able to fly.
interpretation
In the poem there is a clash of two worldviews . The church meets free thought, science, belief in progress and renewal. The bishop is a representative of the old order. In other words, he was accordingly conservative . You can tell by the fact that he claims that a person will never fly but theoretically he cannot know that and is not open to accepting something new. The bishop is so convinced that he does not want to be present and repeats his conviction even after the tailor's death. The tailor is the illustration of a new worldview, with science to discover new things and with the advancement of time. This can be seen in the fact that he tries to fly, although it was unimaginable at the time. He is so convinced of his invention that he wants to try out his grand pianos in public at the risk of his life and is thus ridiculed. “The big, big church roof” shows the bishop's perspective. He wants to emphasize the greatness and power of the church that he represents. “On the hard, hard church square” again emphasizes the strength of the church. It also shows that those who resist church reform will hurt themselves. The tailor died on the "hard church floor". "The bells should ring" indicate the death of the tailor who "crashed" on the ground. Of course, the ringing bells can also represent a new era , which wants to make people aware that they should not only adhere to the old order, but should also understand that it is time to create and learn new things. Why is the poem named Ulm 1592, even though it was recorded by Bertolt Brecht in 1934? This could be due to Columbus' discovery of America , which took place in 1492. This again indicates the new era, which shows that one should never stop researching and discovering new things, even though it does not work at the beginning and appears hopeless. Before Columbus discovered America, everyone thought that the earth was flat. It is the same with the airplane , the tailor also failed miserably in his attempt and nobody believed in him and yet it is possible today to fly around the world with an airplane. So if there were no people like the tailor, we would still be in the Middle Ages today and our world would no longer be subject to the constant change of time.
reception
The poem for the planned collection of children's songs was written in 1934 . In May 1937 it was set to music by Hanns Eisler . It was first printed in 1939 in the Svendborger Gedichte collection .
literature
- Denise Kratzmeier: Bertolt Brecht calendar stories , text and commentary. Suhrkamp Base Library, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-18931-3 .
Web links
- Ulm story (s): The tailor of Ulm. on: ulm.de