Poetry of Mörike by Eduard Mörike
Eduard Mörike was a notable German poet from the Romantic period, recognized for his sensitivity and mastery of simplicity in his poetry. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who were often seen as sentimental, Mörike's work resonated with a broader audience, with many of his poems becoming folk songs during his lifetime. His poetry features classical meters and displays a rich use of the German language, although some critics have pointed out a perceived lack of formal structure in his work. Mörike was part of the Swabian school of poetics and often drew inspiration from nature and personal experiences, including his encounters with love and loss.
His poems, characterized by their spontaneity, evoke deep emotions without pretense or complexity. Notably, composers such as Johannes Brahms and Hugo Wolf have set many of his poems to music, furthering their reach and impact. Mörike's life as a pastor and later a literature professor influenced his writing, which often reflects a childlike awe of the world around him. Despite facing personal hardships, including an unhappy marriage, Mörike maintained a serene outlook on life, which is evident in his poetry. His ability to connect with readers through simple yet profound expressions has allowed his work to endure and remain appreciated across generations.
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Poetry of Mörike by Eduard Mörike
First published: 1838-1846; includes Gedichte, 1838 (Poems, 1959); Idylle vom Bodensee: Oder, Fischer Martin und die Glockendiebe, 1846
Type of work: Poetry
The Work:
Since the Romantic period was, among other things, a revolt against the Age of Reason, it is frequently asserted that the Romantics were sentimental eccentrics. Eduard Mörike cannot be classified as such. He was a sensitive dreamer, a skillful poet, but above all a poet of simplicity. A contemporary critic called him “a human being in nightgown and soft slippers.” Although purists of the Romantic period praise Friedrich Hölderlin, Mörike was able to appeal to a larger public. Many of his poems became folk songs and the basis of folklore during his lifetime. Johannes Brahms, Franz Schumann, and Hugo Wolf set some of his poems to music, and most of these works are still to be heard in concert halls all over the world. Mörike was a master of classical meters, but he abhorred strict theoretical principles in his work. D. F. Strauss, his famous theologian contemporary, said of Mörike, “Thanks to his work, nobody can sell us rhetoric for poetry.” Describing the poet’s intuitive creativity, he stated that “Mörike takes a handful of earth, squeezes it ever so little, and a little bird flies out.”
Mörike made full use of the wealth of inflections that the German language offers. Some critics, however, object to a lack of composition in his poems. Frequently, past, present, and future are interwoven without proper sequence. Mörike himself was suspicious of a purely academic approach. In an epigram, he replied to his German critics: “You can see in his poems that he can express himself in Latin.” He was a representative of the Schwaebische Dichterschule (Swabian school), which had formed around poet Ludwig Uhland. Heinrich Heine, who detested the lack of cosmopolitan ambitions, attacked the school with satirical comments. Mörike always remained a native son, and some of his poems are written in Swabian dialect. He did not leave Swabia except for a few excursions into Bavaria, Tyrol, and Switzerland, and he disregarded the problematic speculations of his time, which caused Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to examine all aspects of nineteenth century knowledge and which made Hölderlin seek refuge in the idealistic world of Greece. Goethe tried to explore the unexplorable, while Mörike maintained a childlike vision and radiated in his poems an adoration of life without torturing his mind with a multitude of question marks. This attitude is demonstrated in his most frequently quoted poem, “Prayer”:
Lord, send what pleaseth Thee!
A prose translation of the same poem may serve to illustrate the simple choice of words that could not be employed in a poetical translation:
Lord, send what you will
Mörike, the seventh child in a family of thirteen, was born in 1804, the son of a medical doctor. A student of theology, he entered the Lower Seminary at Urach and continued his studies at the Higher Seminary. Although he came to dislike theological study, he nevertheless became a pastor in the small Swabian village of Kleversulzbach, chiefly because his mother felt that the ministry was the proper profession for any educated man. His father had died early, and his mother came from a vicar’s family. An attempt in 1828 to establish himself as writer and editor had failed. He admitted feeling “like a tethered goat” when he started his pastoral duties, and he preferred to write poetry instead of sermons. Frequently he had to borrow his Sunday sermons from a colleague. In 1838 he published his first volume, Poems. His attitude toward his parishioners is described in “A Parson’s Experience”:
Fortunately my peasants like a “sharp sermon.” What happens is that on Saturday evening after eleven o’clock they creep into my garden and steal my lettuce and on Sunday in the morning service they expect the vinegar for it. But I make the ending gentle: they get the oil.
After nine years, in 1843, Mörike resigned from his position as pastor for reasons of ill health. The major reason was his desire to be free from his pastoral duties. His happiest time arrived when he obtained a position as a professor of literature in a girls’ high school. A one-hour teaching assignment each week left sufficient time for writing poetry, and the girls enjoyed being lectured on poetry by a real poet. He even earned an honorary doctor’s degree, and the queen attended one of his lectures. His major diversions from his literary work were his delightful drawings, which showed again his ability to create something without strenuous effort. His drawings, issued as a separate volume, have only recently found a larger audience.
Mörike married in 1851, but eventually he and his wife separated. He had also had an unhappy experience with the opposite sex in his student days, when he fell in love with a beautiful young woman who had a doubtful reputation and who failed to remain faithful to him. Five poems with the title “Peregrina” describe his joy and sorrow in love. The cycle ends with the following words:
Could I forsake such beauty? The old bliss
Another love affair, which resulted in an engagement, was called off three years later. Retelling his experience, Mörike again demonstrates his ability to evoke deep feelings with simple words:
Fare you well—you could not guess
In spite of unfortunate love affairs and an unhappy marriage, Mörike never lost his serenity, which was based on a sincere belief in the goodness of his creator and his place in God’s creation. In his most famous prose piece, “Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag” (“Mozart on a Voyage to Prague”), he inserted a poem, usually titled “O Soul, Remember,” which indicates his sense of tranquillity while speaking about the ever-present reality of death:
A sapling springs, who knows
Like most Romantics, Mörike used nature as his major source of inspiration. When he was a curate, he was found resting in the grass of the churchyard while the honor of the Sunday sermon was given to young assistants. Restful poems such as “Withdrawal” were the result of such leisure:
Let me go, world, let me go!
In his adoration of nature he also refrained from the emotional eccentricities that can be noted in the work of his contemporaries. He described his impressions in simple rhymes, which found their way into numerous poetry collections, children’s books, and schoolbooks. “September Morning” falls into this category:
The world’s at rest still, sun not through,
Many love poems, free of affectation, also flowed easily from Mörike’s pen. “Question and Answer” is typical:
Whence, you ask me, did the demon
Mörike’s poems are not the products of tense creative effort by candlelight in an attic (a setting used by most Romantic painters of the era to depict poets). In all of his poems the element of spontaneity is apparent. Nothing sounds labored or contrived. One of his poems, written in bed on a morning, is “The Sisters,” now a well-known Brahms duet. The popular love poem “Fair Rohtraut” was started when he saw the name in a dictionary:
Then they rode home without a word, Rohtraut, Fair Rohtraut;
It is not surprising that Mörike’s deep love of nature and his childlike purity of imagination made him also an outstanding teller of fairy tales and writer of ballads. The mythical world of ghosts and elves comes alive in the “Song of the Elves” and “The Ghosts at Mummeisee.”
In spite of his marriage to a Roman Catholic, the poet never showed an inclination to become a member of any church after he left his pastoral assignment. He was under the influence of his friend D. F. Strauss, who wrote the most unorthodox biography of Jesus of this time. That Mörike admired the ritual of the Catholic Church is evident, however, in his poem “Holy Week.”
Following his separation from his wife in 1873, he lived in several places and at spas, residence made possible by financial help from his friends. He died in 1875, and on his deathbed he was reconciled with his wife.
The simplicity of Mörike’s poems made many of them popular during his lifetime, yet at the same time this quality prevented proper recognition of his art by many of his fellow Romantics. In spite of his unsophisticated writings, no critic ever accused Mörike of being trivial. If the test of time is considered the most valid gauge of the value of a poet’s work, Mörike easily has passed the test, and he will probably remain a popular poet for generations to come. Gottfried Keller, a contemporary Swiss poet and novelist, said after Mörike’s death, “He died like the departure of a quiet mountain spirit . . . like a beautiful day in June. If his death does not bring him closer to the people—it is only the people’s fault.”
Bibliography
Adams, Jeffrey, ed. Mörike’s Muses: Critical Essays on Eduard Mörike. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1990. Ten scholarly essays provide textual and thematic analysis of Mörike’s poetry; a number suggest sources for the poet’s inspiration and comment on the psychological dimensions of his creative drive.
Mare, Margaret. Eduard Mörike: The Man and the Poet. 1957. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973. Detailed, comprehensive biography interweaves analysis of the poetry into Mörike’s life story. Quotations from the works are presented in the original German.
Rennert, Hal H. Eduard Mörike’s Reading and the Reconstruction of His Extant Library. New York: Peter Lang, 1985. Focuses on the poet’s reading to show how other writers influenced the development of Mörike’s poetry and how his works reflect his debt to his literary masters.
Slessarev, Helga. Eduard Mörike. New York: Twayne, 1970. Sketches the poet’s life and reviews the major works, providing textual analysis and concentrated examination of poetic form in Mörike’s lyrics. Includes an assessment of Mörike’s appeal to modern-day readers.
Stern, J. P. Idylls and Realities: Studies in Nineteenth-Century German Literature. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1971. Includes a chapter on Mörike that describes his accomplishments as a lyricist, claiming the poet “excels at showing man in contact with the natural world.” Explicates a number of the poems.
Ulrich, Martin Karl. Eduard Mörike Among Friends and “False Prophets”: The Synthesia of Literature, Music, and Art. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. Examines the images in Mörike’s poetry, his novella about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the Mörike poems that Hugo Wolf and other composers set to music.
Youens, Susan. Hugo Wolf and His Mörike Songs. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Examines the collaboration between Mörike and Wolf, a Viennese composer who set fifty-three of Mörike’s poems to music. Describes how the two men had different ideas about the arts and how Wolf’s own experiences and ideas are reflected in the songs that resulted from the collaboration.