Analysis of The Rebirth of Goethe’s Nosegay



A PARABLE (1828 Prequel)

“I PICKED a rustic nosegay lately,
And bore it homewards, musing greatly;
When, heated by my hand, I found
The heads all drooping tow’rd the ground.

I plac’d them in a well-cool’d glass,
And what a wonder came to pass;
The heads soon raised themselves once more,
The stalks were blooming as before.

And all were in as good a case
As when they left their native place;
So felt I, when I wond’ring heard,
My song to foreign tongues transferr’d.”

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: 1749-1832)

THE REBIRTH OF GOETHE’S NOSEGAY (2022 Sequel)

That rustic nosegay yet has life,
Despite encounters with much strife;
Our efforts must be: “Keep at bay,
Those hazards that may come our way.”

As children of our Mother Earth,
One’s death can lead to new rebirth;
All bloom with tender loving care,
Despite the pains from wear and tear.

From sufferings we learn to rise.
Agreed, it takes one constant tries;
With aid from sundry foreign places,
We rise again to find new spaces.

That is the course life offers us.
To not to worry, not to fuss;
But like a nosegay sprouting bright,
To lift ourselves to lofty height.

So feel I now, when I, in poetry with care,
Goethe’s ‘Parable’ to foreign tongues transfer.
And all is well, in every good case,
when it resounds beyond its native place.


Scheme X AABB CCDD EEXB X X FFGG HHII JJKK LLMM IXEE
Poetic Form
Metre 010010 11010110 01111010 11011111 01110101 11100111 01010111 01110111 01010101 01001101 11111101 1111111 1111011 10111 00111110 1101111 01010111 101011111 110111101 110110101 11111101 11110101 01011101 11001111 01111101 111101010 110111110 11011101 11110111 1101101 110011101 111111010011 1100110101 0111010011 111011101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,329
Words 269
Sentences 11
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 1, 4, 4, 4, 1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 35
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 91
Words per stanza (avg) 21

About this poem

“Goethe’s Parable, in any other tongue, doth flourish to the beat in which it’s sung.” Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), a German writer, politician, and polymath; a novelist, scientist, and statesman, was also a composer of plays and poetry, his works having an enduring and widespread influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought that extends into the present twenty first century. As Goethe, in an expression of the universal metaphysical power of poetry, once declared ostentatiously: “True poetry announces itself thus, that, as a worldly gospel, it can by informal cheerfulness and eternal comfort free us from the earthly burdens which press upon us. ” The alchemical and metaphysical agent for human transformation and a trigger for human individuation, poetry as an art form, serves as a healing balm for the soul, and a source of comfort to the sick and dying. This five-stanza rhymed quatrain poem, “The Rebirth of Goethe’s Nosegay,” serves as a poetic sequel to Goethe’s masterpiece and is therefore written as a supporting conjunction to his 1828 metaphysical poem, entitled „Eine Parabel“ (“A Parable”), which initiates this newly composed poem and therefore serves as a poetic prequel to the entire poem, which in its present format, now consists of a prequel (Goethe’s’Parable’ poem), and a sequel (entitled The Rebirth of Goethe’s Nosegay”), which amplifies the original work. The opening line of Goethe’s poem reads in English as follows: “I PICKED a rustic nosegay lately…” When expressed in German (Goethe’s native language), the same opening line of the poem, would read as follows: “Ich habe kurzlich einen rustikalen Blumenstrauss gepflückt…“ In English, the word “PICKED” (“gepflückt) is all-capitalized, suggesting that that word was likely emphasized by Goethe in the original German manuscript as well. That itself, is an interesting and valuable piece of information. It supports the view of the author’s deliberate construction of the intended semantic ambiguous nature of the poem. In German, the infinitive verb, “gepflügen,” can, semantically, suggest “to cultivate” (“plant,” “grow”) or, alternatively, “to plough” ( to “uproot,” “remove” for harvesting; “to pluck”); both senses of the word, conveying metaphorically contrastive meanings that suggest either “to bring to, as a cause to sustain life; or to reap; or to dispose of by consuming.” Thus, at its outset, Goethe’s poem gives the perceptive reader “heads up” about the mysterious, intertwining, and complex nature of life and death, of death and rebirth; all of which provides a vivid image of the parable of life itself. For current readers, Goethe’s poem, concerning the metaphysics of life and death, is introduced here as a prequel, followed by this new poem, composed as a responsive twenty first century sequel to Goethe’s thoughtful nineteenth century poem. Ich danke allen die dieses Gedicht zu Ehren von Goethes Originalgedicht „Eine Parabel“ aus dem Jahr 1828 gelesen haben. 

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Written on November 18, 2022

Submitted by karlcfolkes on November 18, 2022

Modified by karlcfolkes on July 10, 2024

1:20 min read
1,313

Karl Constantine FOLKES

 · 1935 · Portland

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Liebe Mili’ (translated into English as “Dear Mili”), Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

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