Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht.

Die englische Barockdichtung der "Metaphysical Poets". 
Martin Wunderlich für Nerdnight München, 8.9.2010
1. Wer und wann waren die "metaphysical poets"?
2. Warum sind sie wichtig? 
          Nicht nur für die Dichtung, sondern auch um uns besser zu verstehen.
3. Jetzt mal ganz konkret: Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress"
          - als Beispiel für die nicht-dualistische Geisteshaltung
4. Wiederentdeckung durch T. S. Eliot und ideengeschichtliche Verortung
5. Und noch ein schönes Beispiel: John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud"
1. Wer und wann waren die "metaphysical poets"?
2. Warum sind sie wichtig? Nicht nur für die Dichtung, 
sondern auch um uns besser zu verstehen.
3. Jetzt mal ganz konkret: Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress"
          - als Beispiel für die nicht-dualistische Geisteshaltung
4. Wiederentdeckung und ideengeschichtliche Verortung
5. Und noch ein schönes Beispiel: John Donne's "Death Be Not Proud"
John Donne
21. Januar 1572 - 31. März 1631
Priester, Anwalt, Diplomat, 
Vater von 12 Kindern.
Andrew Marvell 
31. März 1621 - 16. August 1678 
Privatlehrer, Reisender, 
Parlamentarier
Henry Vaughn
17. April 1621 - 23. April 1695
Studienabbrecher in Oxford, 
später dann Arzt
. . .
John Keats
Charles Baudelaire
R. M. Rilke
To his Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell


Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

        But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run. 
Eine logische Schlussformel: 
Ein Wald hat immer mindestens einen Baum. 
Dort drüben sehe ich einen Wald. 
Daraus folgt: Dort gibt es mindestens einen Baum.
Alle Menschen sind sterblich.
John Donne ist ein Mensch. 
Daraus folgt: John Donne ist sterblich.
Kurzer Einschub: Was ist ein Syllogismus?
(das ist der Modus Ponens)

A: Da ist ein Wald.
B: Ich sehe einen Baum. 
A: We have world enough and time.
("wär Welt genug um uns und Zeit")
B: I will praise, as described. 
("Hingehen soll'n einhundert Jahr...")
C: Let us sport us while we may.
("Lass uns zwei rasche Falken sein...")
Strophe 1:  
Strophe 2:
Strophe 3: 
Alles in allem: 
To his Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell


Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

        
Intensive Vereinigung von Verstand und Gefühl. 
Ins Extreme gesteigerte und doch konsistente, logische Metaphern.
Nicht-Wahrnehmung binärer Oppositionen. 
Dualistisches Denken z.B. 
Vernunft vs. Emotion; 
Mann vs. Frau; 
Poesie vs. Naturwissenschaft; 
Mystizismus vs. weltliches Streben. 
Körper vs. Geist
res cogitans vs. res extensae (Descartes)
Aufklärung vs. Romantik
Dichotomisches Denken: 
"There are 10 types of people. 
Those who understand binary and those who don't."
Vielen Dank! 

 

Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht.
Die englische Barockdichtung der "Metaphysical Poets".
Martin Wunderlich
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run. 
1921 - Essay von T. S. Eliot im Times Literary Supplement. 

"The poets of the seventeenth century, the successors of the dramatists of the sixteenth, possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could devour any kind of experience. They are simple, artificial, difficult, or fantastic, as their predecessors were; no less nor more than Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, Guinicelli, or Cino. In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and this dissociation, as is natural, was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, Milton and Dryden."
Dissociation of Sensibility
www.martinwunderlich.com/nerdnight
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Sieh diesen Floh! und sieh zugleich
Wie wenig das, was du mir weigerst, heißt. 
Mich biß er erst, nun beißt er dich, 
In ihm wird unser beider Blut vermischt. 
Gesteh, daß solchen Akt kein Mensch
Sündig, schandbar, und Raub der Unschuld nennt. 
Der da genießt, eh er lang freit,
Labt sich, und schwillt vom einen Blut der zwei;
Und uns wär dies mißgönnt aus Schicklichkeit?

Doch sacht! halt ein! Drei Leben laß
Dem Floh, der uns vermählt, und mehr als das:
Der Floh bist du, dann ich, zuletzt
Ist er uns Hochzeitstempel, Hochzeitsbett:
Den Eltern, dir, zum Trotz, gepaart
In der Klausur aus lebendem Gagat. 
Zwar bist du meinen Mord gewohnt, 
Doch Selbstmord laß, und Sakrileg - vor Gott
Drei Todsünden für dreifach grausen Tod. 

O rasche Willkür! hast du jetzt 
Den Nagel mit der Unschuld Blut benetzt?
Worin denn fehlte dieser Floh
Als in dem Tröpfchen, das er aus dir sog?
Du sagst (und brüstest dich erst recht),
Du fändest weder dich noch mich geschwächt. 
Schon wahr - wie eitel Ängst sind!
Nur soviel Ehre, gibst du dich mir hin, 
Verfällt, wie dir der Flohtod Leben nimmt. 
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
    Yet this enjoys before it woo,
    And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
    And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
    Though use make you apt to kill me,
    Let not to that self-murder added be,
    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
Julian Glover
Creative commons licence: Attribution + Noncommercial + ShareAlike
Nicht-Dualistische
Geisteshaltung
Dissociation of Sensibility

(Auflärung, Industrialisierung, Romantik, Moderne...)
Fragmentierte, analytische
Weltsicht der Gegenwart
?
Sowohl-als-auch
Entweder-oder
"The Flea" by John Donne
From "Six Centuries of Verse"; Athena DVD
Nicht-Dualismus bei Cusanus (Nicolaus von Kues): 
"Co-incidencia oppositorum"
= Zusammenfall oder Vereinigung der Gegensätze
= Gott
"Death Be Not Proud - Holy Sonnet X" by John Donne
performed by Julian Glover