Else-Lasker-Schüler
End of the World
There is a weeping in the world
As though the dearest God Himself were dead,
And the plummeting shadow, it burdens down
Like a grave of lead.
Come, let’s hide and loneliness softens …
Life is locked in our hearts
As in coffins.
You, let’s hug in a deep kiss —(tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)
A longing throbs throughout the world,
And we must die by this.
Auguste Rodin: The Kiss, 1889
The (Un)free Verse of Lasker-Schüler
in Weltende ("End of the World")
by Rolf-Peter Wille
It is not difficult to find an English prose translation of Lasker-Schüler’s Weltende. Reading such a translation, and not knowing the German, I should believe the original poem to be in "free verse". An example of the first stanza:
There is a crying in the world,If I remove the lines, the result reads like a prose sentence: "There is a crying in the world, as if God himself was dead, and the shadow of lead is as heavy as a tomb." This is perhaps a poetic sentence and it has its dignity. But did Lasker-Schüler write this in free verse?
as if God himself was dead,
and the shadow of lead
is as heavy as a tomb.
Es ist ein Weinen in der Welt,There is rhyme, of course: ABAB. The lines are unequally long, but they are not without meter. The first two lines are in iamb:
Als ob der liebe Gott gestorben wär,
Und der bleierne Schatten, der niederfällt,
Lastet grabesschwer.
There ís a wéeping ín the wórld
As thóugh the déarest Gód Himsélf were déad,
When the third line shifts to dactyl
Ánd [hold] the plúmmeting shádow, it búr-[hold]-dens dównthis is doubtlessly a shift in affect as the slowed tempo evokes the heaviness of the "leaden shadow". And the terse finality of the concluding line results not only from the image but also from the trochee:
Líke a gráve of léadThe first lines of the following two stanzas parody the iambic "shadow" line of the first one:
Ánd [hold] the plúm-me--ting shá----dow, it búr-[hold]-dens dówn
Cóme, [rest] let’s híde [rest] and lóne---li-----ness sóftens …
Yóu, [hold] let’s húg in a déep [hold] [hold] kíss —Obviously the hiding and kissing soothes the pain brought by the shadow. Likewise the three concluding lines
Líke a gráve of léadÁs in cóf--fins .
And wé must díe by thís.are not just related in death but metrically as well. Certainly no iamb is used here.
Lasker-Schüler does not compose without meter but she uses a specific meter for specific lines (images). Besides giving a "prose" translation in "free verse", a translator may also be tempted to "correct" the poem, remove the rhythmic shifts and render it all in iamb, for example:
There is a weeping in the worldRead it aloud, if you like and then read again the original translation:
As if the dearest God was dead,
The dismal shadow burdens down
As heavy as a grave of lead.
There is a weeping in the world
As though the dearest God Himself were dead,
And the plummeting shadow, it burdens down
Like a grave of lead.
Gustav Klimt: The Kiss, 1909
Two Different Ends of the World: van Hoddis and Lasker-Schüler
Ironically the more famous and truly "expressionist" Weltende ("End of the World") by Jakob van Hoddis, written about six or seven years after Lasker-Schüler’s, is in rather regular iambic quatrains throughout:
From pointed pates blows off the burgher’s hat,
And all the booming air rocks like a scream.
Roof tilers break and tumble from the beam
And on the coasts—we read—the tide is fat.
(tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)We can hardly imagine two more different poems. Both make biblical allusions, a "weeping in the world" here ("we wept, when we remembered Zion", psalm 137) and a "screaming in the air" there (Revelation?). Indeed the poems differ as weeping and screaming do. Van Hoddis Weltende feels like a scream on a Litfaßsäule (advertising column).
Litfaßsäule, 1932
Lasker-Schüler’s Weltende, in spite of the coffins, uses intimacy to ward off the "dead" outside world. Her world is still a solid one, a very heavy one in fact, and her "kiss" resembles the Rodin sculpture. It does not resemble the weightless Art Nouveau painting of Klimt (see above). Irony is found in van Hoddis—not in Lasker Schüler.
Ironically though Lasker-Schüler put her Weltende into an ironic context in 1941, when she "recycled" it in a highly ironic play IchundIch ("IandI"). In a dispute between Faust and Mephisto she lets Faust recite her Weltende and Mephisto replies:
He [God] hears you not ….
as ev’n the Hell, in which you now are living,
q u i t e m o d e r n i z e d, is God’s place not.
The purgatory was conceived
by monks as the poor sinners judgment spot.
(tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)Following are Lasker Schüler’s two rather ironic descriptions of van Hoddis from 1910 and 1911:
Suddenly a raven flutters up, a black shimmering head scowls over the parapet of the lectern. Jakob van? He speaks his short verses bristling and brazen [trotzig und strotzend], these [verses] are so sharply minted, one could steal them from him. Quatrains—inscriptions; all of them should be inscribed on Thalers—in a welfare-poet state [Sozialdichterstaat]."
Jakob van Hoddis, the raven, has run off with a doll [dame]. Always he’d been sitting already, during the summer, on the ledge of the front window at Friedländer's in Potsdamerstraße 21, languishing, among the towering hats and rose bonnets, for that sweet little Marquise in her little peacock slippers. A soul, which could be bought for 60 Marks.
(tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)(Jakob van Hoddis fell in love with the "doll artist" Lotte Pritzel and even dressed up as a Pritzel doll.)
_____
Here is the original German poem:
Weltende
Es ist ein Weinen in der Welt,
Als ob der liebe Gott gestorben wär,
Und der bleierne Schatten, der niederfällt,
Lastet grabesschwer.
Komm, wir wollen uns näher verbergen ...
Das Leben liegt in aller Herzen
Wie in Särgen.
Du, wir wollen uns tief küssen -
Es pocht eine Sehnsucht an die Welt,
An der wir sterben müssen.
_____
Else Lasker-Schüler
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