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THE LORELEI (Heine)
3
Literary Criticism
Styx - Lorelei
Heinrich Heine
Pre-university: Heine became infatuated with two of his cousins, neither of which returned the attraction
Became a major representative of the post-Romantic crisis in Germany for his awareness of the inadequacy of Romantic traditions in the new upheavals of a later age
"Die Lorelei"
Kept a vague tension between artistic sensibility and reality
Romanticism?
His steady growth in the 1820s was fueled by experiments in prose
Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig in;
Ein Marchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
Die Luft ist kuhl, und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkfelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.
Die schonste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kammt ihr goldenes Haar
Sie kammt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei
Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schat nur hinauf in die Hoh.
Ich glaube die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lorelei getan.
Emphasized individual thought and personal feeling ... "A fable of old" the narrator cannot keep out of his mind
"THE LORELEI"
HEINRICH HEINE
Found inspiration in the particular, unique experience ... The encounter with the "loveliest maiden"
Highlighted the supernatural and the workings of the unconscious mind ... The woman/Lorelei's "dulcet-voiced power"
I cannot determine the meaning
Of sorrow that fills my breast:
A fable of old, through it streaming,
Allows my mind no rest.
The air is cool in the gloaming
And gently flows the Rhine.
The crest of the mountain is gleaming
In fading rays of sunshine.
The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, so wondroudly fair;
Her golden jewelry is glist'ning;
She combs her golden hair.
She combs with a gilded comb, preening,
And sings a song, passing time.
It has a most wondrous, appealing
And pow'rful melodic rhyme.
The boatman aboard his small skiff, -
Enraptured with a wild ache,
Has no eye for the jagged cliff, -
His thoughts on the heights fear forsake.
I think that the waves will devour
Both boat and man, by and by,
And that, with her dulcet-voiced power
Was done by the Lorelei.