ModernGermanLiterature18801950

136 MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE

tions of the mood of a soul. What we do get are Baudelairean
Correspondences' of the poet's inner state with the outer state of
nature,1 with the dying splendour of autumn ('glan^erfiillte sterh-
woc/jen*}, fullness of fruits, the sick scent of yellowing leaves car-
peting the gravelled garden paths, the flight of wild swans - in
short, all the old sensations of sight and sense of romanticism, but
lifted out of personality into a spirit world.

The general scene of Nach der Lese is a city park with a pond
and fountains with basins of basalt; but the famous poem Komm
in den totgesagten park undschau ... is not this park in autumn but
the impressions of this particular autumn, with its fullness of
colours to weave into the verse of an autumnal soul; Wirschreiten
auf und ab im reichen flitter \ Des buchenganges ... is just this moment
when through the grating of the park gate an almond tree is seen
miraculously blooming for the second time in the year and ripe
fruits are heard falling (and may there not be a second blooming
of verse and ripe fruits of song?). These illusory landscapes, too,
typically begin with a prepared situation; that is, the reader must
create the situation by feeling himself backwards in the mood.
Thus

Gemahnt dich noch das schone bildnis dessen

Der nach den schluchten-rosen kuhn gehascht*

Der uber seiner jagd den tag vergessen*

Der von der dolden vollem seim genascht?

Der nach dew parke sich %ur ruhe wandte*
Trieb ihn ein flugelschillern alfyuweit.
Der sinnend sass anjenes wethers kante
Und lauschte in die tiefe heimlichkeit. . .

Und von der insel moosgekronter steine2
Verliess der schwan das spiel des wasserf alls
Und legte in die kinderhand diefeine
Die schmeichelnde den schlanken hals.

is, as Hofmannsthal interprets the poem in his Gesprdch uber Ge-
dichte, a reminiscence of the poet's childhood literally recorded;
the landscape setting - quite simple - is a boy by a pond in a park;

1 Gundolf might call it Zmieinigkeit, a unity of two.

2 Note the tangled construction: the first two stanzas question, the third
with an abrupt transition rektes what followed in the oicture evoked.