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Goethe, Pioneer of Folkloric Poetry

by Traute Klein, AKA biogardener

Folkloric language is beloved by people around the world. Goethe's use of the style endears his poetry to German-speaking people to this day.

The Father of German Poetry

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, might be considered the father of German poetry. During his lifetime, he was involved in a great variety of undertakings, and he excelled in them all. It is, however, his poetry which has endeared him to the German people for all time.

What unites the German-speaking people of the world is the love for their language. Residents of Austria, Switzerland, Rumania, Ukraine, Australia, and Canada all declare themselves as Germans when they hear their beloved language. My father, for example was born in what is now Ukraine. He always told me that he was born in Russia, but it never occurred to him that he was ever anything but German. In 35 years of living in Canada, he never considered accepting this country's citizenship. He was German, and that was that. Until his death, he spoke the language with an excellence of presentation that would have put many an orator to shame.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe understood this love. He capitalized on it. Like Luther before him, he spoke the language of the common people, the language of simplicity. He spoke it with a poetic flair which has been unmatched in history. Poets since Goethe have emulated him in word and in action. They have imitated not only his style of writing but also his style of living life to its fullest. We shall have a look at this phenomenon in the writings of Heinrich Heine in another article.

Goethe and Shakespeare

I have heard people arguing about who is the greater poet, Shakespeare or Goethe. Shakespeare is renowned to be the greatest dramatist and his plays have certainly entertained a greater number of audiences over the centuries than those of any other dramatist. I have enjoyed many of his plays year after year. In comparison, there are few of Goethe's dramas which I enjoy. It is also known that Goethe's vocabulary exceeded that of Shakespeare greatly. I would, however, not judge their greatness on any of these points.

Let us look at their popularity among the people who speak their language. Shakespeare quotations abound in the everyday idiom of the English language, but how many people can recite his poetry? No, even though Shakespeare's plays frequently speak the coarse language of the people of the street, his poetry reflects the refined language of aristocracy. It is not the language of folklore. Folklore was not a consideration of the 16th century.

English speaking children do not learn to sing Shakespeare songs like folksongs, in fact, I cannot think of any Shakespeare song which I could sing with or without the text in front of me. We cannot compare Shakespeare's age to that of Goethe. His language does not lend itself to folk traditions. It is confined to the stage and the classroom. Comparing the two poets is like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges.

The Language of Folklore

Germans love folksongs. These songs have survived for hundreds of years mainly through oral traditions. They were carried all over Europe by the journeymen traveling from town to town, often singing to pass the time. They are therefore understood and loved by people in the entire German-speaking realm of Europe and beyond. I learned to sing folksongs by memory long before I went to school. Many of them were taught to me by my mother and others I picked up by listening to the radio. By definition, the authors of those folksongs are supposed to be unknown. I learned in later years, however, that many of the so-called folksongs were written by well-known poets. Goethe was probably the first to deliberately pen poems which could easily pass as folksongs. It came as quite a shock to me when I learned that he wrote the words of "Sah ein Knab ein Röslein stehn." That is not a poem. It sings. Every child sings it, not in the Lieder setting by Franz Schubert, but with the folkloric melody by which I first learned it.

The collection of folklore was a main goal of Goethe's time. His comtemporaries, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm have enriched all of our childhood memories with their fairy and folk tales. They collected them by listening to story tellers throughout the country. Folksongs also were written down, and sometimes the writer who penned the traditional words got credit as author. No one worried about copyright. It did not exist. For centuries, court composers, under the stress of time restrictions, borrowed entire pieces of music from each other, note for note. Similarly, poets used text from other writers whose names may or may not have been known to them. It is therefore impossible to tell which poems of our favorite authors are wholly their own and which ones are borrowed in part or in entirety. Does it matter? I don't know. I enjoy the poetry of folklore just as I enjoy the poetry of Goethe. And I really do not need to know the author to appreciate the words. They are part of my everyday language. They are what makes me German.

How many people are upset that the introductory song of "The Sound of Music" was lifted from the ballet music of Wagner's "Tannhäuser?" How many people are even aware of it? I only found out about it a few years ago. I would like to see Wagner get credit for his creation, but I am not upset about the use of the melody in "The hills are alive." The resurrection of the forgotten music in this format has given new life to Wagner's music. Likewise, the use of folklore in poetry of any age enhances the old as well as the new. It rises from the soul of the common people and therefore speaks straight to the heart. It is the element of language which endures timelessly. It is the language of poetry.



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