#NationalPoetryMonth: The Sonnets of Andreas Gryphius

Somehow in my university studies we never studied the Baroque period in any depth, which is a pity, for there is much to be admired.  This was brought home to me recently when I read Ralph Rothmann's 2018 novel Der Gott jenes Sommers (See my review), in which he quotes a stanza of Grabschrift Marianae Gryphiae ("Epithaph of Marianna Gryphius") by the poet Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664). That very moving poem compelled me to look into other poems by Gryphius.  Some of his best poems, and best-known poems, can be found in his first collection - Sonnete - published in 1637, also probably the first sonnet cycle in German language.  In many of the poems Gryphius displays amazing poetic control - for a poet of only 20 years of age - as well as innovation within the confines of the Baroque conventions.

One of the most powerful - a well-known - poems in the cycle is Es ist alles Eitel ("All is Vanity"). The poem deals with the Baroque theme that life - and everything material - is ephemeral.  The sonnet is constructed with dichotomies: what's here today is gone tomorrow.  Cities become meadows where sheep graze, victorious armies strutting proudly become ash and bone, and so on.  The poem is neatly divided between two quatrains ending in two tercets. God ("Du") is addressed in the first half as He surveys the vanity of His creation. This shifts to "wir" (we), His pathetic creation ("Nichtigkeit") unable, or unwilling (ambiguity of "will" in the last line) to seek for what is eternal.  For a young man, Gryphius had certainly experienced his fair share of loss: he lost both parents at a young age, witnessed the horrors of war first hand, and fled from the horrible plague that killed those fortunate enough to escape the ravages of war.  No wonder Rothmann was inspired by the poems fo Gryphius when writing about the death and destruction at the end of WWII.  And today, Gryphius speaks to us as we watch the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral engulfed in flames, or as cities flood due to man-made climate change.  

Es ist alles Eitel

DV sihst / wohin du sihst nur Eitelkeit auff Erden.
Was diser heute baut / reist jener morgen ein:
Wo itzund Städte stehn / wird eine Wisen seyn /
Auff der ein Schäfers-Kind wird spilen mit den Herden:
Was itzund prächtig blüht / sol bald zutretten werden
Was itzt so pocht und trotzt ist Morgen Asch und Bein /
Nichts ist / das ewig sey / kein Ertz / kein Marmorstein.
Itzt lacht das Glück uns an / bald donnern die Beschwerden.
Der hohen Thaten Ruhm muß wie ein Traum vergehn.
Soll denn das Spil der Zeit / der leichte Mensch bestehn?
Ach! was ist alles diß / was wir vor köstlich achten /
Als schlechte Nichtikeit / als Schatten/ Staub und Wind;
Als eine Wisen-Blum / die man nicht wider find't.
Noch will was Ewig ist kein einig Mensch betrachten!

(All is Vanity

Look where you will, you see only vanity on earth.
What some build today others tear down tomorrow:
Where now stand towns there will be a meadow
On which a shepherd’s child will play with the herds:
What now splendid flowers shall soon be trodden down
What now struts and preens will be ash and bone tomorrow,
There is nothing can be eternal, no metal, no marble stone.
Now Fortune smiles on us, but soon hardships will threaten
The fame of great deeds must be like a fleeting dream.
Why should the plaything of time, the frivolous human, endure?
Oh! What is all this that we regard as precious
But worthless nothingness, than shadows, dust and wind,
But a wild flower that cannot be found again.
That which is eternal yet no human wills to see!)

Comments

[Koogleschreiber]

Marcus Aurelius, stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor, would have liked the poem.

“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”