When the World Went Mad… An Anthology of German Baroque Poetry

Mikhal Baranouski:

This book is great for extracting epigraphs, but I felt like starting specifically with Grimmelshausen as translated by Vasil Syomukha. He concluded the anthology as an appendix, so let him begin the review.

The image of darkness is not coincidental – what else can you call a period in history when the population of your country decreased by three-quarters? And in individual provinces – Württemberg and Bavaria – by nine-tenths.

Professor Halina Sinila helps to delve into the historical and literary context. Great attention is paid to this "delving" – her "introductory" article takes up exactly half of the anthology. I don't even recall another translated book with such a proportion of theory and texts. I really love this. Another real little book for the "imaginary" academic shelf of the "Literary Monuments" series in Belarusian translation.

Paradoxically, during this apocalyptic time, poetry in the local language began to find its voice. "German poetry is completely lost... / <>... we speak Latin well, / And no one wants to be ridiculed for the German language," proclaims Martin Opitz. A familiar story...

At that time, there was a peculiar division: aristocrats spoke French, the university environment spoke Latin, and German occupied the lower tier in the hierarchy.

Add to this regional poverty, plague, the Thirty Years' War, and you get "excellent" conditions for creative self-expression.

Professor Halina Sinila focuses in detail on names such as Opitz, Logau, Fleming, Gryphius, Silesius, and also writes a little about other authors in the anthology, whose lives were far from sweet.

This was reflected in the content of the works, many of which describe depressive states and the futility of life in general, with the appropriate genre name – Vanitas Gedicht. In opposition to which humor, love-erotic lyrics, and poems searching for moral support broke through. By the way, "kissing poems" are very sweetly called "basia-poems" – I couldn't ignore them, just like aphoristic poems "significant poems" – Sinn Gedicht, and epigrams, which I also really love.

Optional remark. It was interesting to learn that Fleming, at the invitation of his friend Adam Olearius, took part in an embassy to Muscovy. Olearius described the royal reception in great detail in his memoirs. It so happened that I was reading them concurrently with the anthology.

As for the translations themselves, done by the tireless Lavon Barshcheuski, they seemed dry and economical in their means. How justified this is, I find it difficult to say due to my lack of German. One of the translations was analyzed in the introductory article and compared with a literal translation. Even if it's just one example, the reader can see how much the original differs from the translated text. It seemed to me that preference was given to conveying content and form, rather than embellishments.

Finally, I will provide examples of my favorite works. A little about vanity, but more about laughter and kisses, which save when darkness envelops.

*DEATH

That death comes to me, I fear not, no –
I fear it will not bypass my loved ones

*MAY

This is the month that will reward the earth with a kiss from heaven:
She will become a mother, though now she walks as a bride.

(Friedrich von Logau)

*HE WISHED TO BE KISSED

Only on the lips, no other way,
Kiss me – yet
So that to the heart, not lazily,
The playful tongue may reach.
Not too little, not too much –
Just as much as is needed:
Not with childish play
Are we here amusing ourselves, you and I.
And no less, and no more,
So there is no regret, no pain –
Thus Adonis in Venus
Cultivated a sense of measure.
Not stronger and not weaker,
Sometimes gently, sometimes more tightly,
Now searching for a spot,
Now waiting for a moment
Preserve all intimacy
With your soft touch –
Now with a nip, now with a breath
Slowly part your lips.
People can kiss
Whoever can, here and there –
Our secret, yours and mine,
Is a method known only to us.

ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD

Sleep, beloved child!
Many heroes perish in the world,
Winds carry nations away
Of time. Our lives
Are quickly taken by age:
Is man too fragile?
Sleep peacefully! For us, the poor,
Life continues as before.
Wisdom – chooses old age,
And foolishness here and there.
So many of us, blind, mute:
We remain children.

(Paul Fleming)

ABOUT RUBELLA

Rubella wanders daily and incessantly,
Back and forth across the noisy market,
But buys nothing. And I wonder why?
Apparently, she wants to sell herself there.

ABOUT BUSK

The miser Busk, ninety years old, is sick,
Too often, yet simply fears thinking of death:
It's not about a longer life that he worries –
It's about how many coins will be spent on the funeral.

(Andreas Gryphius)

P.S. The print run of the book is 70 copies, and it will very quickly become a bibliographic rarity, so hurry up.