foudebassan (foudebassan) wrote in gedichte, @ 2008-04-14 20:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | eichendorff, romantik |
Joseph Karl Benedikt Freiherr von Eichendorff
(1788-1857)
is a perfect representative of the generation that was born to late to really live through the collective excitement that bubbled through Europe with the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, but that was still close enough to it all to feel that they, too, should do something deep and meaningful with their lives - and the inability to do so caused some great pieces of frustrated poetry.
Both his parents, like the woman he was to marry, came from old noble Catholic Silesian families who had lots of lands, traditions and tales of glory earned in the battlefield but very little cash. His education wasn’t all that remarkable – he was brought up at home, then at a boarding school. He first started to write aged 12 and never really stopped. He then studied law and travelled around a bit, then fought to free Vienna from the eeeevil French in 1814-1815. He did another stint at university in Berlin right after the creation of the Humbolt university, where he listened to lectures by Fichte and probably met, among others, Brentano and Arnim. After that he went back to Silesia where he had an unremarkable career in various administrations. His is perhaps best known for his novel Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts (1826).
His family went bankrupt and had to sell a good part of their estate. As you can see in today’s poem, Eichendorff never really recovered from that and remained deeply nostalgic of the good old days of yore.
List of musical adaptations here but I couldn't find a single one of them on youtube :(
Sehnsucht Es schienen so golden die Sterne, am Fenster ich einsam stand und hörte aus weiter Ferne ein Posthorn im stillen Land. Das Herz mir im Leib entbrennte, da hab ich mir heimlich gedacht: Ach, wer da mitreisen könnte in der prächtigen Sommernacht! Zwei junge Gesellen gingen vorüber am Bergeshang, ich hörte im Wandern sie singen die stille Gegend entlang: von schwindelnden Felsenschlüften wo die Wälder rauschen so sacht, von Quellen, die von den Klüften sich stürzen in die Waldesnacht. Sie sangen von Marmorbildern, von Gärten, die überm Gestein in dämmernden Lauben verwildern, Palästen im Mondenschein, wo die Mädchen am Fenster lauschen, wann der Lauten Klang erwacht, und die Brunnen verschlafen rauschen in der prächtigen Sommernacht. |
Nostalgia The stars shone so golden As I stood alone by the window And heard, from far away A post horn (1) in the silent countryside. My heart broke out of my body, For I secretly told myself: Oh, but to travel away with them In the glorious summer night! Two young journeymen Went past the hillside I heard them sing as they hiked Along the silent countryside: They sang of vertiginous cliffs Where the woods swoosh so softly, Of founts, that rush Out of the abyss, into the forest night. They sang of marmorean images, Of gardens that grew wild Over the rocks, in the dawning (2) arbours, Of palaces in the moonshine Where girls eavesdrop at the windows When the sound’s rattle arises And the fountains sleepily swoosh In the glorious summer night. |