"German Poetry for Beginners" by Emma Sophia Buchheim
German lyric poetry has entered the mainstream of the world's cultural mindset.
This is primarily due to the fortunate circumstance that the German lyric reached its greatest pinnacle at roughly the same time as did German Classical music. This rare outcome between word and tone was the Lieder of such 19th century composers as Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Schubert, Mahler.
Unfortunately there are countless German poems which have not travelled on the wings of song. The greatest German poets succeeded in evoking by their words an almost magical Stimmung.
Contrary to popular belief, the German language is not harsh, clumsy or difficult. In the lyric poetry contained in these collection of German poetry, the German language proved to be as pliable as any other language.
Many of the selections in this collection prove the wonderful elegance and melody of the German language.
Much to my chagrin there are no brief introductions to each poem (or poet), to help the reader understand each poet and discover in what ways each one differs from the others.
NB: The poems are all in Gothic Script. I've selected three poems to "translate" into a common typeface: “Zur Nacht” (Karl Theodor Körner), “Vergissmeinicht” (Hoffmann von Fallersleben) and “Fünf Dinge” (Goethe)
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