When in Early Summer by Nelly Sachs
"When in Early Summer" is a poignant poem by Nelly Sachs, known for its vivid imagery and profound emotional depth. First published in *Sternverdunkelung* and later included in *The Seeker, and Other Poems*, it stands as one of Sachs's most recognized works in Germany. The poem consists of sixteen lines divided into five stanzas, where the first three create a progression of thought, while the last two offer commentary. Initially, the poem captures a serene summer night filled with life, beauty, and a sense of connection to nature, evoking feelings of peace and harmony.
As the poem unfolds, Sachs transitions from the tranquility of the night to mystical visions that transcend ordinary experiences, depicting surreal images such as "fish fly in the air." However, this enchantment is juxtaposed with a stark reflection on the tragic realities of the world, particularly the Holocaust. The poem grapples with questions of divine justice, highlighting the absence of retribution for immense suffering and atrocities faced by the Jewish people. The closing lines emphasize the dissonance between the ongoing cycles of nature and the horrors endured by humanity, leaving readers with a haunting sense of incredulity and sorrow. This complex interplay of beauty, mysticism, and tragedy invites reflection on profound themes of existence, suffering, and the human condition.
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When in Early Summer by Nelly Sachs
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: “Wenn im Vorsommor,” 1949 (collected in The Seeker, and Other Poems, 1970)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“When in Early Summer” was first published in Sternverdunkelung. It is available in English in the book The Seeker, and Other Poems. Sachs wanted to omit the poem from the 1961 edition of her collected poetry but was persuaded by the editor, Enzensberger, to include it. The poem contains some of her most vivid images and is one of Sachs’s best-known works in Germany.
The sixteen-line poem has five stanzas. Of these, the first three form a progression and the last two commentary. The first stanza, with five lines, describes a night in early summer when nature seems especially alive and humans seem especially attuned to its reassuring messages. All is as it should be, calm and beautiful. “The moon sends out secret signs,” the “scent of heaven” streams from the lilies, and, as the crickets sing, one can hear the “earth turning and the language of spirits set free.”
It being night, the poet’s thoughts move easily from the outer world to the inner world. In the two lines of the second stanza, in dreams, she moves into the mystical state and envisions things beyond the realm of the ordinary. The first image is one of entry into a higher form of being: “fish fly in the air.” This is consistent with the ecstatic experience of the summer night. The second image contains a downward motion, “a forest takes firm root in the floor of the room,” and indicates that in mystical experience transcendence is always shadowed by determinism.
In the central stanza, the poet moves from one extreme to the other. “In the midst of enchantment a voice speaks clearly and amazed.” Twice the voice addresses the world, asking how the world can go on playing its games when “little children were thrown like butterflies,/ wings beating into the flames.” The poem has moved from the mundane world, through the sweetness of mystical vision, to a vision of an unfit world.
How can the Holocaust not be punished by God? In the Old Testament, aberrations before the Lord brought some terrible retribution in the natural world. Amazingly, the worst thing done to the Jewish race since biblical times takes place in the twentieth century and divine retribution fails to materialize. “Earth has not been thrown like a rotten apple into the terror-roused abyss.” The closing stanza reiterates the poet’s surprise: “Sun and moon have gone on walking—/ two cross-eyed witnesses who have seen nothing.”
Bibliography
Alexander, Edward. The Resonance of Dust: Essays on Holocaust Literature and Jewish Fate. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1979.
Bahr, Ehrhard. “Flight and Metamorphosis: Nelly Sachs as a Poet of Exile.” In Exile: The Writer’s Experience, edited by John M. Spalek and Robert F. Bell. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.
Bower, Kathrin M. Ethics and Remembrance in the Poetry of Nelly Sachs and Rose Ausländer. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2000.
Garloff, Katja. Words from Abroad: Trauma and Displacement in Postwar German Jewish Writers. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005.
Hook, Elizabeth Snyder. “Between Fatherland and the Holy Land: Israel as Refuge and Reminder in the Poetry of Nelly Sachs and Else Lasker-Schüler.” In “A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey”: Visions of Israel from Biblical to Modern Times, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon and Ronald A. Simkins. Omaha, Neb.: Creighton University Press, 2001.
Langer, Lawrence L. Versions of Survival: The Holocaust and the Human Spirit. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.
Rosenfeld, Alvin. “Poetics of Expiration: Reflections on Holocaust Poetry.” The American Poetry Review 7 (November/December, 1978): 39-42.