Pattern Poetry

A figure poem (also calligram ) is a poem that works not only as a "literary text", but also still a visual standpoint another level of meaning based, for example, by shaping the body text.

History

Figure poems are known as at Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius Venantius Fortunatus or since antiquity. As an immediate precursor, the ancient Greek Technopaignia have to apply, but also grid poems from Egypt. Magic formulas or inscriptions ( for example in Pompeii ) were often written or drawn in an artful form.

Especially Christian thinkers of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages figure poems written as religiously inspired lattice poems. The lattice poems were composed of a grid of letters as we know it today by word search puzzles in magazines. So-called "in- text" utilizing particularly important statements were often highlighted in this grid. They often had the shape of a cross or any other Christian subject. The number of letters used also frequently went back to zahlenmystische considerations are so often to be found in a single figure poem several levels of meaning.

Among the most significant examples of the book De laudibus sanctae crucis belongs ( "From the praise of the Holy Cross ", 825/826 ) with 28 cross poems, written by Rabanus Maurus scholar ( 780-856 ).

However, their largest groups flourished, the figure poems only in the mannerist poetry of the Baroque, and numerous former poets such as Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg and Theodor Kornfeld competed in this area.

And in print ...

Poem from the Calligrammes of Apollinaire

Recent examples can be found in the French poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Mallarmé ( Un coup de dés jamais le hasard n'abolira (1897 )), in the authors concrete poetry such as Eugen Gomringer, Ernst Jandl, as well as Christian Morgenstern: