About the tree that wanted other leaves (poem)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The little tree that wanted other leaves is a poem by the German writer and language scholar Friedrich Rückert . In 13 stanzas the path of a small conifer is described, which appears in self-talk as a speaking being.

Content and effect

Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866) wrote five fairy tales for his youngest sister Marie (1810–1835) to put my little sister to sleep for Christmas 1813 . The tree is the second of these five works. The protagonist of the poem is dissatisfied with his natural needles and expresses various requests for changes. These are all fulfilled and cause short-term satisfaction, but always lead to new disappointments due to external influences. Golden leaves are collected by a wandering “Jew”, glass leaves are swept away by the whirlwind and green leaves are eaten away by a goat . Finally, the tree gets its original needles back and is happy about it, even if the other trees laugh at it. The poem is written in a child-friendly style, with a few dialectal phrases (“go naus” in the last stanza).

In 1940 Vom Bäumlein served as a template for an anti-Semitic , seven-minute short cartoon by Heinz Tischmeyer of the same name .

Because of the anti-Jewish content of the fourth stanza, Jewish organizations in western and southern Germany complained in the 1960s that the poem was printed in a book of fairy tales and poems distributed to customers by the Bremen coffee company Eduscho . As a result, all Eduscho branch managers were instructed to delete the word “Jew” from the promotional gifts they were given. In today's editions “the Jew” is mostly replaced by “the robber” or “a farmer”.

There is a free English translation by Henry van Dyke (1852–1933) under the title The foolish fir-tree .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Family grave - Bavarian literature portal
  2. ↑ Der Spiegel, 53/1966
  3. ^ Garden literature
  4. ^ Poem of the Week

Web links