Wanderer's storm song
Wandrers Sturmlied is the title of a hymn by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , which was probably composed in 1772 and initiated his phase of Sturm und Drang .
It was only forty years later that Goethe decided to have the poem printed and to include it in the 1815 edition. Without his knowledge it had already been published in the journal Nordische Miszellen in 1810 .
The work shows the influence of Pindar on his work and opens a series of great and important free rhythmic hymns by the young poet. It is based on the overwhelming impressions of the wanderer in the storm , who invokes the genius as an expression of creative power, which supports him even in times of distress, gives him strength and enables the creative process.
Wandrer's Sturmlied is considered to be one of Goethe's most difficult works: the creative artist-ego grips with the gesture of the original in a dense mass of ancient education and formal history, which eludes an easy analysis. In the further course of the long hymn, Goethe shows how the mythical figure of Jupiter Pluvius emerges from the experience of nature .
Form and content
The individual stanzas are rhythmically quite uniform, while differences can be seen between them. They form a supporting movement to which the sentences subordinate themselves more clearly than in other poems by Goethe.
Goethe adopted the oden form from Pindar, for example the triadic scheme, in which a stanza is first followed by an antistrophe with the same length and then an epode with a different length, without completely fulfilling its strict formal requirements.
The free metric ties in with the verses of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , who, repealed in the Christian faith and without the claim of the secular original genius, in turn referred to Martin Luther's translation of the Psalms , which Goethe was also familiar with.
As the first modern poet, Klopstock had written works in free rhythms that had been printed in different magazines.
Origin and edition
A letter from Goethe to Johann Gottfried Herder from mid-July 1772 speaks for the poem's creation this summer. Goethe showed the work to only a few friends and sent copies to Charlotte von Stein , Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Herder. Jacobi wrote: "Here is an ode to which only the wanderer in need invents melody and commentary."
Goethe had the poem published for the first time in his work edition from 1815, after he had it in the third part of his autobiography From my life. Fiction and Truth , which came out four weeks before Easter, 1814. Goethe writes about the time there after he dumped Friederike Brion with a letter from Frankfurt in August 1771.
- “The answer by Friedriken to a written farewell tore my heart apart. It was the same hand, the same sense, the same feeling that came to me, that had grown up in me. Only now did I feel the loss she suffered and saw no way to replace it, only to alleviate it. She was completely present to me; I always felt that I missed it and, worst of all, I could not forgive myself for my own misfortune. Gretchen had been taken from me, Annette had left me, here I was guilty for the first time; I had wounded the most beautiful heart in its deepest way, and so the epoch of gloomy repentance, with the lack of an accustomed, refreshing love, was most embarrassing, even unbearable. But man wants to live; therefore I took a sincere part in others, I tried to unravel their embarrassments, and to combine what wanted to part, so that they would not fare like me. That is why they used to call me the confidante, and also, because of my wandering around the area, the wanderer. This reassurance for my mind, which was only given to me in the open air, in valleys, on heights, in fields and forests, was helped by the location of Frankfurt, which was between Darmstadt and Homburg, two pleasant places that were both related to each other Farms were in good proportion. I got used to living in the street and wandering back and forth like a messenger between the mountains and the plains. Often I walked through my hometown alone or in company, as if it was none of my business, dined in one of the large inns in the Fahrgasse and moved on to Tisch on my way. More than ever I was directed against the open world and the great outdoors. On the way I sang strange hymns and dithyrambs , one of which is left under the title Wanderer's Stormsong. I sang this half-nonsense passionately to myself because terrible weather hit me on the way, which I had to go towards. "
Background and meaning
Goethe's later rejection shows the removal of the established representative of Weimar Classicism and namesake of the age of Goethe from an early work by Sturm und Drang, an expression of an ingenious consciousness with which he ushered in a new phase of poetry.
According to Christian Schärfs, Goethe wanted to give the correct understanding of the verses by pointing out that he had sung the words to himself before the approaching storm . What this emphatic early work represented formally and in terms of content could no longer please the iconic figure of the epoch, which has become mythical, and without the unauthorized printing he would probably not have included it in his work edition. Wandrers Sturmlied show "the purest and at the same time the most complex expression of Goethean consciousness" during the Frankfurt time.
During Goethe's long convalescence after the severe " hemorrhage " in the summer of 1768, which forced his return from Leipzig to Frankfurt, it was Susanne von Klettenberg , the role model for the beautiful soul in Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship , who brought him into contact with the internalized world of Pietism brought. During this time he also dealt with individual questions of chemistry and alchemy . The decisive impetus for Goethe's poetic production came from Herder, whom Goethe, who had resumed his studies in Strasbourg in April 1770, got to know there in September and who made him familiar with the folk song , Shakespeare and Ossian - impressions that required expression and , starting with the storm song , set a new language of the storm and stress in motion. A little later, the passionate hymns Prometheus , whose rebellious tone was easily recognizable, followed by Mahomet's song and Ganymede . They stand for a changed awareness of the young bourgeoisie.
In the Sturmlied , Goethe took up not only Herder's ideas, but also Johann Georg Hamann's , in order to express thoughts and feelings in a moment of enthusiasm in an immediately effective language. In addition to the impressions of the storm, he incorporated motifs from ancient mythology and the Bible .
While orienting himself towards Herder, he also wanted to refute his concerns. In the fragment On Modern German Literature Herder had noted: “ Dithyrambs , imitated according to the Greek taste, remain strange to us. The drunken sensuality that delighted with them would perhaps be an annoyance for our fine and well-behaved world; the maddening in them would be dark, confused and often nonsensical [...]. "
The hiking motif
The 12th Book of Poetry and Truth , which speaks of Wanderer's storm song , begins with the words: "The Wanderer finally came home healthier and happier than the first time, [...]" had already in his youth Goethe made long excursions in the area, and in the Darmstadt district he was soon called the "Wanderer". In addition to long hikes around Frankfurt and in the Taunus , he later went on forays through Switzerland, Bohemia and Italy to experience the world in the great outdoors. In Goethe's work, in addition to Wandrer's Sturmlied , one finds the dialogical idyll, which also belongs to Sturm und Drang, The Wanderer , Wanderer's Night Song , Wanderlied , Wanderer and Leaseholder , up to Wilhelm Meister’s old work Wanderjahre .
The poem
Whom you do not leave, Genius,
not the rain, not the storm
breathes a shudder into his heart.
Whom you do not leave, Genius,
Will sing to the rain cloud,
Will sing towards the castle tower
,
Like the lark,
you up there.
Whom thou wilt not leave, Genius,
Will lift him over the mud
path With the wings of fire.
He will walk as if
with flower feet
Over Deucalion's flood mud, killing
python , light, big,
Pythius Apollo .
Whom you do not forsake, Genius,
You will spread the woolen wings under,
When he sleeps on the rock,
You will cover him with guardian wings
In the midnight of the grove.
Whom you do not leave, Genius,
you will be enveloped in warmth in the snowstorm
;
After the heat to draw Muses ,
after heat Charities .
Float around me, you muses, you Charitin women!
That is water, that is earth,
And the son of water and earth,
Over whom I walk like
gods.
You are pure, like the heart of the water,
you are pure, like the marrow of the earth,
you hover around me, and I hover
over water, over earth, like a
god.
Should he return,
The little, black, fiery farmer?
Shall he return, expecting
only your gifts, Father Bromius ,
And brightly warming fire?
Are you brave enough to return?
And I, whom you accompany,
all
Muses and Charitin women,
Whom
awaits everything that you,
Muses and Charitin women,
crowning bliss,
have glorified for life,
should turn discouraged?
Father Bromius!
You are Genius,
Century Genius,
Are what inmost embers
Pindar was,
What the world
Phoebus Apollo is.
Sore! Sore! Inner warmth,
soul warmth,
focus!
Glow against
Phöb Apollen;
Otherwise
his prince's
gaze will glide
over you
coldly , envious. Linger
on the cedar strength,
which
does not wait to be green .
Why is my song last calling you
You, from whom it began,
you, in which it ends,
you, from which it
wells , Jupiter Pluvius !
You, you my song flows,
And a castal spring runs
a side stream,
Rinnet idle, mortally
happy
Away from you,
who cover me,
Jupiter Pluvius!
Not by the elm tree
Did you visit him,
With the pair of doves
In the tender arm,
With the friendly Ros wreathed,
Dandering him,
Anacreon
happy with flowers , Storm-breathing deity!
Not in the poplar forest
On the Sybaris beach,
On the mountain's
sun-shined forehead, did
you not grasp him, Theocritus,
singing flowers, babbling
honey,
waving friendly .
When the wheels rattled,
wheel to wheel quickly away to the goal
,
glowing
youths with a crack of whip flew high ,
and dust rolled,
we down from the mountains pebble
weather into the valley, your soul dangers glowed, Pindar,
courage. - Glowed? -
poor heart!
There on the hill,
Heavenly Power!
Just so much embers,
there my hut,
to wade there!
literature
- Karl Otto Conrady : Goethe, life and work. Wertherzeit in Wetzlar. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-491-69136-2 , pp. 174-176.
- Katharina Mommsen : Wanderer's storm song . Yearbook of the Vienna Goethe Association 81/82/83 (1977/1978/1979), pp. 215–235. www.katharinamommsen.org/pdf/1985-Wanders%20Stumlied.pdf
- Christian Schärf: Singing and Writing. Goethe's poem “Wandrers Sturmlied” as a cultural and historical innovation. In: Poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Ed. Bernd Witte, Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-017504-6 , pp. 26-42.
- Rolf Christian Zimmermann: “Wanderer's Storm Song” by Goethe - a scholarly poem in the Pindar tradition? In: Traditions of Poetry. Festschrift for Hans-Henrik Krummacher. Ed. Wolfgang Düsing, Tübingen 1997, pp. 73-85.
Individual evidence
- ^ So Karl Otto Conrady , Goethe, Leben und Werk, Wertherzeit in Wetzlar, Patmos, Düsseldorf 2006, p. 174
- ↑ Christian Schärf, Singing and Writing, Goethe's poem “Wandrers Sturmlied” as a cultural and historical innovation, poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, p. 29.
- ↑ Ulrich Gaier, From Myth to Simulacrum: Goethe's "Prometheus" -Ode, in: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lyrik und Drama, New Paths of Research, Ed .: Bernd Hamacher and Rüdiger Nutt-Kofoth, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2007, p 63
- ↑ Christian Schärf, Singing and Writing, Goethe's poem “Wandrers Sturmlied” as a cultural-historical innovation , poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, p. 31
- ↑ So Erich Trunz , notes on Wandrers Sturmlied, in: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gedichte und Epen I, Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 473
- ↑ Karl Otto Conrady , Goethe, Leben und Werk, Wertherzeit in Wetzlar, Patmos, Düsseldorf 2006, p. 173
- ↑ 2/88, http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004860306
- ↑ 2/247 of August 31, 1774, http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004860322 ; Erich Trunz , comments on Wandrer's Sturmlied, in: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gedichte und Epen I, Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 472 books.google
- ↑ a b From my life. Poetry and truth . Third part. Twelfth book zeno.org
- ↑ Christian Schärf, Singing and Writing. Goethe's poem "Wandrers Sturmlied" as a cultural-historical innovation, poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, p. 27
- ↑ Pindar and the dithyramb singer (1766) https://www.uni-due.de/lyriktheorie/texte/1767_2herder.html ; see also Christian Schärf: Singing and Writing. P. 30
- ↑ http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004841565
- ↑ http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004842723
- ↑ http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004840208
- ^ Gero von Wilpert, Wanderer , in: Goethe-Lexikon, Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, p. 1147
- ↑ Goethe poems. Edited and commented by Erich Trunz. Anniversary edition 2007. Text based on: Poems and Epics I, Goethe's works, Hamburg edition, Volume I, CH Beck, Munich 16th edition 1996, pp. 33–36 books google . See also freiburger-anthologie.ub.uni-freiburg.de