Like the previous two poems, also the third text set by Ansorge is part of George’s Sänge eines fahrenden Spielmanns. It is the sixth poem of this cycle and is preceded by “So ich traurig bin” which Anton Webern set to music in his Opus 4.
The poem consists of three stanzas containing four verses each. All verses are trochaic and end in unstressed syllables. The regular rhythm gives the text a songlike quality. As indicated by the cycle’s title, the poem is one of several songs of a vagrant minstrel. However, this poem is not about courting a woman. It is a “poem of renunciation”. The speaker prefers to leave the other person “rather than to trouble her even with the mere telling of ‘Menschen müh und weh’”. Kosler (2007) points out that George might have recognised himself in the minstrel’s position as an outsider who displays the truth of the world in a pleasing way but does not participate in the life he conveys. As someone who knows he is the opposite of the innocence to which he is attracted. Kosler states further that the poem bears witness to the three primary
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All words in the first stanza consist of either one or two syllables. Alliterations in the second to fourth verse add an artistic quality to the minstrel’s song. The fourth verse seems slightly archaic and is, therefore, harder to understand. The word “müh” could be read as an adjective. It might be related to the noun “Mühe” meaning “trouble” or “toil”, or it might allude to the adjective “müd” or “müde” meaning “tired”. In this case, the second and fourth verse could be translated as “For you must not know […] tired/troubled and sore people.” As George used only small letters in his poems apart from the start of each verse, it is also possible to read “Müh” and “Wehe” as nouns. In that case, however, the genitive is not constructed properly. To be understood as a genitive and translated as “people’s toil and woe”, the phrase should be “Der Menschen Müh und
The use of anaphora is prominent in the poem as each stanza is initiated with the same or similar phrase. The second through eighth stanza begin with the words, “I see them,” this is to show the speaker’s sympathy for the slaves and the horrible lives they were given. He feels as if he is his great-grandfather and is responsible for the abhorrent crimes he committed. Berry then changes the phrasing to, “I know” signifying that he empathizes with the slaves, finally saying, “I am” showing that he feels similar to a slave. This anaphora shows the struggle of being a descendant of an evil person, the speaker’s inner demons make his life full of shame and guilt for the actions of his ancestors.
This stanza begins the encounter. It sets the scene saying it is a lazy street. He begins to describe the woman's beauty, pointing out her hazel eyes and tiny feet.
...traditional desires of love, the narrator portrays the idea that nature is more valuable than typical materialistic things eg; ‘spend it not on flowers...but.. Sky and a grass ditch’ many similes, oxymoron’s, metaphors are used in the poem alongside enjaments to suggest that the narrator hasn’t enough time, her treasure is time. The short sentences used are pauses to perhaps show how the narrator is stressing time. ‘like treasure.. limbs gold’ is a simile used which refers to the richness of spending time with someone. Compared with ‘Of Mice and Men’ George and Lennie don’t have the luxuries of being good friends but make the most of things ‘guys like us.. no family...you got me.. i got you...’ however oppositely Lennie is overwhelmed by his dream to have rabbits and the alfalfa-materialistic things he thinks by achieving this dream himself and George can be happy.
he uses the word “I” representing a group. A group of child who observes the wonder of the white people and wishes if they had the same. Similarly he uses the word “we” and “theirs” in the poem,
The first lines in the third stanza are, “He brought them with him—the minefields. / He carried them underneath his good intentions.” (12-13). The minefields that the father carries with him are obviously not physical minefields. They could simply be memories, or his loneliness, or most likely fear. The father was not a bad man, but he was living in fear. This fear took over his life and was passed on to his children. In the third stanza Thiel wrote, “He gave them to us—in the volume of his anger, / in the bruises we covered up with sleeves.” (14-15). The father would be so angry that he would squeeze their arms so tight he left bruises. The poem goes on to say, “In the way he threw anything against the wall— / a radio, that wasn’t even ours, / a melon, once, opened like a head.” (16-18). Thiel uses wonderful imagery to show the reader the fear of the poem. The melon that “opened like a head” is frightening because the father so easily crushes is against a wall, something that can easily be compared to a human skull. The speaker also says “threw anything against the wall”, which means it was not a rare occurrence that this father would be so angry that he would throw objects against the wall. Towards the middle/end of the third stanza is where the reader starts to see the effects on the children. After talking about the melon the speaker goes on to
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
One of the more confusing parts of the poem for me was the last two lines in the second stanza. Stephen Mitchell has a mystic almost dark tone when he is translating the following:
The only other people in the camp that could observe these scenes were the prisoners themselves, meaning the poem must be written from their point of view. Both poems don’t show an exact persona
In the first stanza, the author uses precise words describe he is in a dark wheat field and shrouded by moonlight. The author describes the moonlight as feathers “ The moon drops one or two feathers into the field,” (1), this is a metaphor, by describing
This, in fact, is an example of “dynamic decomposition” of which the speaker claims she understands nothing. The ironic contradiction of form and content underlines the contradiction between the women’s presentation of her outer self and that of her inner self. The poem concludes with the line “’Let us go home she is tired and wants to go to bed.’” which is a statement made by the man. Hence, it “appears to give the last word to the men” but, in reality, it mirrors the poem’s opening lines and emphasises the role the woman assumes on the outside as well as her inner awareness and criticism. This echoes Loy’s proclamation in her “Feminist Manifesto” in which she states that women should “[l]eave off looking to men to find out what [they] are not [but] seek within [themselves] to find out what [they] are”. Therefore, the poem presents a “new woman” confined in the traditional social order but resisting it as she is aware and critical of
At the start, the first stanza of the poem is full of flattery. This is the appeal to pathos. The speaker is using the mistress's emotions and vanity to gain her attention. By complimenting her on her beauty and the kind of love she deserves, he's getting her attention. In this first stanza, the speaker claims to agree with the mistress - he says he knows waiting for love provides the best relationships. It feels quasi-Rogerian, as the man is giving credit to the woman's claim, he's trying to see her point of view, he's seemingly compliant. He appears to know what she wants and how she should be loved. This is the appeal to ethos. The speaker seems to understand how relationships work, how much time they can take, and the effort that should be put forth. The woman, if only reading stanza one, would think her and the speaker are in total agreement.
To begin, the sound of this poem can be proven to strongly contribute an effect to the message of this piece. This poem contains a traditional meter. All of the lines in the poem except for lines nine and 15 are in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of eight syllables. This is relevant in order for the force of the poem to operate dynamically. The poem is speaking in a tenor of veiled confessions. For so long, the narrator is finally speaking up, in honesty, and not holding back. Yet, though what has been hidden is ultimately coming out, there is still this mask, a façade that is being worn. In sequence, the last words in each of the lines, again, except for lines nine and 15, are all in rhythm, “lies, eyes, guile, smile, subtleties, over-wise, sighs, cries, arise, vile...
Suddenly, the German words "Starnbergersee" and "Hofgarten" are introduced, readjusting the reader's own view of the poem, before throwing it completely off-course in line 12: "Bin gar nicht.." Just as quickly, though, the lines revert to a previous pattern with the use of "And I.", "And down.", "And when.." "Discontinuity, in other words, is no more firmly established than continuity," writes Michael Levenson (A Genealogy of Modernism). In his analysis of the initial eighteen lines, it becomes apparent that no clear conclusion may be drawn as to who is speaking, or how many speakers are present. There are several methods of unifying the disjointed speaker(s), all of which conflict with each other, although they may be equally true.... ...
In each single stanza of this poem, the speaker complains about the evils that the lady has done to him and shows some anger on his tone "you." In my opinion this means the lady cheated him and he now feels unappreciated and unwanted.