Golden Goblet: Selected Poems of Goethe - Softcover

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1941920799 ISBN 13: 9781941920794

Verlag: Deep Vellum Publishing, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

The Golden Goblet traces Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poetry from the idealism of youth to the liberation of maturity. In contrast to his rococo contemporaries, Goethe's poetry draws on the graceful simplicity of German folk rhythms to develop complex, transcendent themes. This robust selection, artfully translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederick Turner, explores transformation, revolution, and illumination in Goethe's lush lyrical style that forever altered the course of German literature.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is the most prominent and influential figure in German letters. Born in Frankfurt, he published his breakout novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, in 1774 at the age of twenty-five, and the first part of his lyric masterpiece, Faust, in 1808. Goethe was a poet, novelist, literary critic, diplomat, and scientist, publishing works crossing the spectrum from tales of romantic despair to dense scientific tomes. His involvement in the literary movement Sturm und Drang was formative in the development of Romanticism, and his writings created a new paradigm in German high culture.

Zsuzsanna Ozsváth is the Leah and Paul Lewis Chair of Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and Director of the Holocaust Studies Program. Ozsváth received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and her research focuses on aesthetics and ethics in German, Hungarian, and French literature. In 1992, she received the Milan Fust Prize, Hungary’s most prestigious literary prize, with her co-translator, Frederick Turner, for Foamy Sky: The Major Poems of Miklos Radnoti (Princeton University Press, 1992).

Frederick Turner is Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Turner received his B.Litt, a PhD-level terminal degree, from Oxford University, and his research considers poetry, aesthetics, and Shakespeare. He received the prestigious Milan Fust Prize with co-translator Zsuzsanna Ozsváth for Foamy Sky: The Major Poems of Miklos Radnoti (Princeton University Press) in 1992.

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Dedication

to the recipient of a collection of early poems

So here they are! You have them now!—These artless, toil-less songs somehowSprung from a brookside meadow.With youth’s sweet pain, in love, aflame,I played the young man’s ancient game,And thus I sang its credo.

Sing, you who cannot help but singUpon a pretty day of spring;And youth enlists their fable.The poet squints, far off, for whomHygienic calm has pressed its thumbUpon his parted eyeball.

Half cross-eyed and half wise, he peers—Your bliss incites a few wet tears,He wails in clause and meter.He listens to his own good sense,Supplying his best eloquence,Knows the brief joys are sweeter.

You sigh, and sing, and melt, and kiss,And shout with joy: the close abyssUnknowingly disparage.Escape the field, the sun, the rill,Slink off, as if in winter’s chill,To seek the hearth of marriage.

You laugh at me and call me fool;The fox who lost his tail would schoolUs all to like curtailment.But here the tale must surely fail:This honest fox, snared by the tail,Warns you from such beguilement.

1769-70 Wild Rose

Once a boy a wild rose spied,Rosebud in the heather;Young and fresh as morningtide,Ran to see, all eager-eyed,Joyful, gazing thither.Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,Rosebud in the heather.

Then the boy said: I’ll pick you,Rosebud in the heather!Rosebud answered: I’ll prick you,I’ll not be forgot by you:I’ll not bear it either.Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,Rosebud in the heather.

And the rude lad plucked her then,Rosebud from the heather;Rosebud pricked him, but in vainWas for her all grief and pain,She must ache forever.Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,Rosebud in the heather.

1771 The New Amadis

When that I was but a boy,Locked up on my own,Many years I spent that wayJust as if aloneIn my mother’s womb.

You were then my waking dream,Golden fantasy;And the ardent hero I,Just like Prince Pipí,Errant, ventured by.

Crystal castles I had wrought,And destroyed them too;And into the dragon’s gutMy bright spear I threw.What a man I’d be!

Chivalrous I now set freeThat fair fish-princess,Who with parfit courtoisieLed me to the messeIn my gallantry.

Bread of heaven was her kiss,Glowing as the wine—Ah, I almost died of this.Mailed with sunblaze like a shrine,Glorious was she.

Who has stolen her from me?Did some magic bandHold her back from liberty?Where’s her native land?Where’s the path? Tell me.

1771-74Wanderer’s Storm Song

Not rain, nor storm, Can shake his heart Whom you have not forsaken, Genius.Against the hailstorm, Against the cloud-wrackHe whom you have not desertedWill be singingLike the lark, Genius,O you on high! Whom you never leave, O Genius, On fiery wings you will raise him up Above the muddy path;He will wanderFlower-footed Over the ooze of Deucalion’s inundation; Python shall he destroy, light, great, Pythian Apollo.

Whom you never leave, O Genius, You will bear up with your fleecy wings Where he sleeps upon the rock, Cover him with guardian-pinions In the midnight’s darkest grove.

Whom you never leave, O Genius, You in deepest snow will Warmly swaddle; To what’s warm bow down the muses, To what’s warm bow down the graces.

Hover around me, Muses! Graces! This is water, that is earth, And, the son of water and the earth,I am free to wander As a god.

Pure you are, as the heart of water, Pure as the earth’s aeon-deep marrow; You hover round me and I hover Over earth, and over water, As a god.

Does that little peasant, Fiery, sunburned, ever retreat? Turn back, though all he hopes in reward Be but your gifts, good Father Bromius, And a bright-glowing warm hearthfire? Brave in his return? Should I, then, your companion, One whom the Muses and the Graces All await in expectation, Whose life Muses and Graces Glorified with wreaths of bliss, Now turn back disheartened?

Father Bromius! Genius you are too, Genius of centuries; That inner fireOf Pindar; To the world, Phoebus Apollo.

Woe, woe! That inner glow, Warmth of the soul, Center it! Glow, fire, back at Phoebus Apollo; Else cold be His princely glance, Gliding over you uncaring, Struck with envy, Lingers on the mighty cedar Not delaying In its greening.

Why does my song name you last? You from whom it began, You in whom it ends, You from whom it wells out, Jupiter Pluvius! You, you, my song jets forth, Jupiter Pluvius, You from whose Castalian Spring This tributary stream Flows idly on In mortal happiness; You who hold and protect me, Jupiter Pluvius!

Not by the elm tree—Storm-breathing deity!—Did you ever visit Him who cradled in his arms That pair of doves, Wreathed with the amiable rose, Playful, flower-rejoicing, Anacreon. Nor in the poplar grove By the shores of Sybaris On the tall mountainside Upon whose brow shines the Sun, Did you ever embrace That bee-singing, Honey-bubbling one Who waves in greeting, Theocritus.

When the chariots rattled, Wheel to wheel, toward the finish-line, High flew the whipcrack Of youth inflamed with victory; The dust whirled As down from the mountain Whirl the hailstones of the storm; Your soul burned, Pindar, Always toward dangers —Courage, Pindar—glowed, Poor heart! There on the hill, Heavenly power! But there’s enough fire —Yonder is my hut— To trudge all the way there.

1772

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Deep Vellum Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1941920799
• ISBN 13: 9781941920794
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 234
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar