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Time of Day in Early Expressionist Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Russell E. Brown
Russell E. Brown*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Stony Brook
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Extract

GEORG Trakl, Georg Heym, and Ernst Stadler are generally grouped together as the early German Expressionists. Each was born within a four-year period, 1883–87, and each died in the two-year period, 1912–14. The three poets produced a great deal of bad poetry before breaking through to both originality and modernity for a few short years before early deaths. Their poetry provided some of the models for the immense following wave of Expressionist lyric and at the same time represents the greatest and most lasting achievement of that movement. They shared many techniques, such as the new kinds of metaphor (described by Schneider)1 or the new kind of lyrical sentence-line (Zeilenstil described by Heselhaus).2

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , January 1969 , pp. 20 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1969

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References

1 K. L. Schneider, Der bildhafte Ausdruck in den Dichtungen Georg Heyms, Georg Trakls und Ernst Stadlers (Heidelberg, 1954). References to time of day are collected for Heym on pp. 47–50, for Trakl on pp. 115–117.

2 Clemens Heselhaus, Deutsche Lyrik der Moderne (Düsseldorf, 1962), pp. 146–151.

3 Omitting the Georgeian Praeludien of Ernst Stadler of 1905 and Trakl's unpublished Erste Sammlung of 1909.

4 The editions used for the three poets are the following: (1) for Trakl: Die Dichlungen, 11th printing (Salzburg, 1938); (2) for Heym: Vol. I of Dichtungen und Schriften, ed. K. L. Schneider (Hamburg, 1964); (3) for Stadler: Vol. i of Dicht-ungen, ed. K. L. Schneider (Hamburg [1954]). Since the poems are readily located by title in any edition, I have omitted page numbers. Because many individual words from the poems are quoted, I have, contrary to normal practice, placed titles of poems in italics to differentiate between quotations and titles.

5 In a recent study of Trakl's poetry (the first English-language monograph on the author), T. J. Casey begins with an analysis of the motif of “Abend.” Manshape That Shone (Oxford, 1964), pp. 12–18.

6 Josef Leitgeb, “Die Trakl-Welt. Zum Sprachbestand der Dichtungen Georg Trakls,” Wort im Gebirge, iii (1951), 7–39.

7 Perhaps the most important attempt to identify periods in Trail's poetry is Kurt Wölfel's “Entwicklungsstufen im lyrischen Werk Georg Trakls,” Euphorion, lii (19S8), 49–81.

8 “Georg Trakl. Eine Erörterung seines Gedichtes,” Merkur, viii (1953), 226–258.

9 The two outstanding studies of Rimbaud's influence on Trakl are: (1) Reinhold Grimm, “Trakls Verhältnis zu Rimbaud,” Germanisch-Romanisehe Monatsschrift, Neue Folge, ix (1959), 288–315; (2) Herbert Lindenberger, “Georg Trakl and Rimbaud: A Study in Influence and Development,” CL, x (1958), 21–35.

10 A computer concordance of Heym's poetry which I am now preparing will extend the basis for these observations. The total number of occurrences in all of Heym's mature poetry can already be supplied: “Nacht” occurs 206 times, “Abend” 127, “Tag” 82, and “Morgen” 28 in a word count of 58,000.

11 See Kurt Mautz's comments on this and other intentionally pleonastic constructions. Mythologie und Gesellschaft im Expressionismus. Die Dichtung Georg Heyms (Frankfurt, 1961), pp. 44–45.

12 “Georg Heym. Der Krieg” in Die deutsche Lyrik, ed. Benno v. Wiese (Dusseldorf, 1962), p. 435.

13 “Als das böse Gestirn einer zum Untergang verurteilten Welt ist der Mond in der Dichtung Heyms auch Sinnbild der verwunschenen, im ‘Ende eines Welttages’ stillstehenden Zeit.” Mautz, p. 260.

14 In commenting on the last word, “Nachtfanale,” of Berlin I from Der ewige Tag, Kurt Mautz writes (p. 69) : “Die Metapher ‘Nachtfanale’ hat ohnehin den Charakter des Drohenden, da ‘Nacht’ auf Chaos und Untergang deutet. Immer sind es die nächllichen Stadte, die in der Dichtung Heyms … von Weltuntergangsbränden zerstört werden, und in dem Großstadtgedicht ‘Der Winter’ heisst es allgemein: ‘Und jede Nacht ist blutigrot und dunkel’.” See also pp. 69–70.

15 Martini (pp. 442–444) compares Heym's “Der Krieg” with the sonnet of Gryphius, “Tränen des Vaterlandes.”

16 “Die Lyrik Ernst Stadlers” in Der deutsche Expressionismus, ed. Hans Steffen (Göttingen, 1965), pp. 25–13. Quoted from page 25.

17 An examination of earlier, pre-Expressionist works of Stadler reveals a constant preoccupation with time of day, more particularly with night. Stadler's first published poem is entitled “Eine Nacht” (Die Gesellschaft, 1902). In the dramatic scene Freundinnen (1903) the word “Nacht” occurs in the first and last line, twenty-two times in all. The dramatic fragment Baldur has a final scene entitled “Aus tiefsten Nächten dämmern neue Morgenröten”; the last word is “Morgensonnen.”

18 In reference to this poem Johannes Klein writes: “Die riesigen Verse, beispiellos in der bisherigen Lyrik, werden zum Gegenteil der expressionistischen Drängung: grosse Schwingung. Sie führt auch zum Gegenteil der Untergangsvision: zum Hymnus auf die Technik and den Aufbruch auch dieser Kräfte. Darin beruhrt Stadler sich mit den Arbeiterdichtern.” Geschichte der deutschen Lyrik, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden, 1960), p. 821.

19 Arno Schirokauer has also considered the temporal setting of the poem. Schirokauer denies the special significance of dawn in Stadler's work, which I have claimed, when he writes: “Es ist unrichtig zu sagen, Stadlers Stunde sei der Tagesanbruch, seine Jahreszeit der März … Abend, Nacht, Novemberdüster … sind ebenso haufig.” Yet Schirokauer agrees that Stadler consciously uses time of day in a symbolic manner: “Nur so viel ist richtig, dass ailes Temporale zum Bild des eigenen Seelenlebens wird. Die Seele steht unter der Zeit, deren Spielball sie wird: Der Wechsel zwischen Tag und Nacht reflektiert das Auf und ab zwischen Gespanntheit und Müdigkeit, Sturm und Stille.” The statement is from “Über Ernst Stadler,” A kzente, i (1954), 320–334; reprinted in Germanistische Siudien (Hamburg, 1957), pp. 417–434. Quoted from page 430 of the latter.

20 And yet in Germany at least the nature poem is still very much alive, in the line from Loerke to Lehmann and Krolow.

21 From Gottfried Benn's poem, “Der Arzt,” first published in Fleisch (Berlin, 1917).