Gingo biloba
Gingo biloba (also: Ginkgo biloba ) is a poem about the two-part (Latin: biloba) leaf of a ginkgo tree, wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in September 1815 and in 1819 published his collection West - Eastern Divan.
The spelling " gingo " Goethe chose in the first version aware to the hard consonants "k" to omit the title.
Formation
The poem is Goethe's later love, dedicated to Marianne von Willemer, and is the ginkgo leaf due to its form as a symbol of friendship represents the first version of the poem is dated 15 September 1815, when Goethe during a five -week stay in Frankfurt, where several times had an appointment with Marianne Willemer of the Main river; a week even Goethe lived in the Red males, the Will Merschen town homes, the rest of the time in the Gerbermuhle.
It is narrated that Goethe, the leaves of the Ginkgo looked and pondered their shape. He sent one of the sheets as an expression of his affection to Marianne von Willemer, the third wife of his friend Frankfurt, the banker Johann Jakob von Willemer that was more than twenty years younger than himself mentioned the friend of Goethe art collector and writer Sulpiz Boisserée in a diary entry of 15 September 1815 - he traveled out on 18 September by the Gerbermuhle with Goethe to Heidelberg - the genesis of the poem " Gin (k ) go biloba ":
" Cheery evening. G. had the Wilemer a sheet of Ginkho (sic) biloba as a symbol of friendship geschikt out of town. You do not know whether it is one that divides into two, or Zwey who connect into one. Such was the content of the verse. "
Content
The first version of the poem reads:
Gingo Biloba This tree Leaf of East Into my garden, Gives secret meaning to cost, How 's the adepts delight, Is it a living being, The separated in yourself? If there are two, which have decided, That they should be as One? To reply to such question, I found the right answer, Do not you feel my songs, That I am one and double?
The heading and the first line indicate that this poem a natural leaf of the ginkgo exists, is attached to the "Book Suleika " of the West-Eastern Divan. The original version more as calligraphic handwriting on a single sheet of paper with the date September 15, 1815 this idea. In the print version, however, this single-sheet character is lost.
Reception
Goethe's poem has long been known only from a letter he sent on 27 September 1815 by Heidelberg at Rosine Städel in Frankfurt am Main. Therefore, the researchers assumed that ginkgo leaf come from Heidelberg. The sinologist Günther Debon localized the ginkgo poem of Goethe on the terrace piece of Heidelberg Castle. The question Ginkgo whose leaf Goethe sent as a symbol of friendship to Marianne von Willemer, stood directly opposite the Goethe memorial plaque and planted in 1795. Even in 1928 it was said that the Ginkgo tree in Heidelberg Castle Garden " is still the same, the Goethe owed the inspiration for his beautiful poem " well. Probably the tree was even in 1936, but today it no longer exists. However, the Goethe- research lies since 1965 before the fair copy of the poem. The letter with the poem, the Goethe beilegte two Ginkgo leaves, is on display at the Goethe Museum Dusseldorf. Date and diary entries of Boisserée and Goethe occupy Frankfurt am Main as the place of composition, although it remains uncertain whether the gingko leaf from the garden of the pharmacist Salzwedel, from the gardens of Charles Andreae- Bansa, Schaumainkai 27, or Peter Anton Brentano, Roedelheim comes, . (→ Ginkgo in Roedelheim ). In all three gardens, the Goethe knew and visited, ginkgo trees are occupied at that age, can be inferred from the leaf.