Marienbad Elegy

Under the title "Trilogy of Passion" took Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1827 for the first time three poems together that arose at different times and on several occasions in the years 1823 and 1824. The last poem in the trilogy is the Marienbad Elegy, a love poem, the occasion was the final separation of Goethe by Ulrike von Levetzow.

Background

In the summer of 1821 traveling Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to a cure in the Bohemian Marienbad. Looking for distraction from the dreary everyday life, from infirmities of old age and loneliness, he meets seventeen -year - naive coquette Ulrike von Levetzow spends with her mother and two younger sisters summer in Marienbad. In the nearly 72 -year-old Goethe kindled a great passion for the 54 years younger girls. Blinded by love, he dares two summers later in 1823 the almost unthinkable: With the help of his friend the Grand Duke Carl August of Saxe- Weimar -Eisenach he keeps writing and formally at Ulrike's mother, Amalie Levetzow to the girl's hand in marriage. Carl August supported the request by promising the family a carefree life in his court. " No disapproving, not scolding makes love blameworthy ," Goethe justifies his efforts before Carl August.

All the more shocking is the fate always favored Goethe, who all his life had luck in love, the polite refusal by Ulrike: " The young lady would have no desire to get married," says diplomatically. This greatest personal defeat Goethe is also the culmination of his creative power. After this bitter experience of the lovers already set his love of renunciation experience in the coach after his departure from Marienbad a lyrical monument: the Marienbad Elegy, a lament that " the product of a highly passionate state " is, according to Goethe.

This painful experience is also the last experience of love in Goethe's life and sealed Goethe's farewell to love in general. The disappearance of the ability to love the people, the Goethe confers a religious rank is equated with death:

Reception

Johann Peter Eckermann sees the poem as most personal testimony of Goethe's passion: " The youthful glow of love, tempered by the moral elevation of the spirit, which appeared in general to me as the poem by border character. By the way, it seemed to me as if the sentiments expressed stronger than we are accustomed to meet in other poems of Goethe ... "

Stefan Zweig describes the lyrical document as the "most important intimate poem of his age " and dedicated to the creation and history of a full chapter in his famous collection of literary miniatures moments of humanity. For branch verses contain " one of the purest verses about the feeling of devotion and love ever created the German and any other language that ":

Otto Erich hard life, however, turned against the " hideous poem [ ... ] This puffed hollow straw shall go to the devil. , In action, to the delight of seis seis loving ' - if it were not loses his patience - God damn! This is a disgusting Wichtigthuerei and nothing more. "