Some background on Erlkönig

Transcript

1. Course details and background information This slideshow explains the ideas behind this course and provides some background information that should be useful for understanding Goethe’s Erlk¨ onig. All the additional texts are written in English (although German would be easier for myself) since any German learner from a (late) beginner level to an almost fluent level is supposed to benefit from this course. I hope the course will motivate you to spend some time with one of the most famous German poems. As the course is a kind of experiment in online didactics, i will appreciate any feedback and will try to improve the course accordingly.
2. Introduction If you are just interested in a translation of the Erlk¨ onig, you don’t need this course. The English wikipedia page about the Erlk¨ onig contains both a literal and an adapted translation and provides a lot of background. This course teaches you all the German vocabulary appearing in the poem and provides some multimedia resources as well as a short summary of background information with the main purpose to help learners understand the German text by themselves. I hope that some learners may be motivated to read more about the Erlk¨ onig or Goethe. If you are looking for a challange, you could try to understand the poem without any sources beyond the vocabulary levels. Alternatively or additionally, you could challenge yourself to learn the poem by heart which will seriously impress even German natives (who usually forget the text after learning it by heart at school except for the first two and the last two lines).
3. The structure of the course The levels of this course can be learned in any order and probably you like to come back to certain multimedia levels many times. The two vocabulary levels are separated into passive (German-English) learning of not so common or even archaic or poetic words and active (English-German) learning of those words that i consider to be useful for anyone learning German. The other three multimedia levels present the text of the Erlk¨ onig in completely different ways whereas the remainder of this slide show explains some background (spoiler alert) that can be read now or later or could even be skipped completely.
4. The legend of the Erlking The Erlking as a character has its origins in a common European folkloric archetype, the seductive but deadly fairy or siren. In its original form in Scandinavian folklore, the character was a female elven spirit ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge. Johann Gottfried von Herder introduced the Erlking character into German literature in “Erlk¨ onigs Tochter”, a ballad published in 1778 which is essentially a free translation of a Danish folk ballad. The translation of the Danish elverkonge (or ellerkonge) in “Erlk¨ onig” (alder king) instead of “Elfenk¨ onig” (elf-king) is often interpreted as an accidental mistranslation. It’s probably safer to say that the origin and reason for the translation is not clear.
5. Goethe’s inspiration for writing the Erlk¨ onig Although clearly inspired by Herder’s ballad, Goethe departed significantly from both Herder’s rendering of the Erlking and the Scandinavian original. The antagonist in Goethe’s Erlk¨ onig is, as the title suggests, the Erlking himself rather than his daughter. Goethe’s Erlking differs in other ways as well: his version preys on children, rather than adults of the opposite sex, and the Erlking’s motives are never made clear. Goethe’s Erlking is much more akin to the Germanic portrayal of elves and valkyries - a force of death rather than simply a magical spirit. Goethe’s main inspiration, apart from the Erlking legend, is said to have been an incident where he observed a farmer taking his sick son to the doctor by horse.
6. Erlk¨ onig is ubiquitous in German culture Goethe’s Erlk¨ onig has inspired musicians, painters, authors, psychologists and comedians all the way from its publication in 1782 to the current generation. The best-known musical version is the song for voice and piano (Lied) by Franz Schubert (Opus 1) that you can listen to in the second video of the Erlk¨ onig glogster. Beethoven’s version remained unfortunately unfinished. In the ‘learn by heart’-level of this course and the course thumbnail, you will find plenty of historical visualizations of the subject, mostly historical postcards. A free English adaption of Erlk¨ onig was written by Sir Walter Scott. The 1970 French novel ‘The Erl King’, that is based on Goethe’s ballad, has been picturized in the 1996 German-French film ‘The Ogre’ with John Malkovich. The Erlk¨ onig glogster also contains a recent Erlk¨ onig show by the Swiss comedian Marco Rima. Even pop music likes Erlk¨ onig references, e.g. the Rammstein song “Dalai Lama” is in fact an adaption of the ballad.
7. Interpretation of the Erlk¨ onig The interpretation of poetry is often a subjective matter that should be left to the reader himself, but maybe some general hints may be inspiring. According to one interpretation, the Erlk¨ onig is a pure hallucination of the boy owing to his illness and his fear and the boy dies of his fever in the end. In contrast, interpreters believing in natural magic focus on criticizing the rational attitude of the father. Another point of view sees indications of sexual child abuse in the poem and some interpreters even consider the Erlking a rapist. A completely different interpretation focuses on the adolescence development of the boy who is tempted by his first erotic fantasies and, at the end, only the child within the boy dies as he enters the world of adults as a man. When you spend enough time with this course, you will probably be able to understand the poem well enough to come up with your own interpretation. For example, can you think of a reason for the grammatical paradox that Goethe has written the entire poem in the present tense except for the last line?