文档介绍：Hermann and Dorothea
Hermann and Dorothea
By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Translated by Ellen Frothingham
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Hermann and Dorothea
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
There are few modern poems of any country so perfect in their kind as
the "Hermann and Dorothea" of Goethe. In clearness of characterization,
in unity of tone, in the adjustment of background and foreground, in the
conduct of the narrative, it conforms admirably to the strict canons of art;
yet it preserves a freshness and spontaneity in its emotional appeal that are
rare in works of so classical a perfection in form.
The basis of the poem is a historical incident. In the year 1731 the
Archbishop of Salzburg drove out of his diocese a thousand Protestants,
who took refuge in South Germany, and among whom was a girl who
became the bride of the son of a rich burgher. The occasion of the girl's
exile was changed by Goethe to more recent times, and in the poem she is
represented as a German from the west bank of the Rhine fleeing from the
turmoil caused by the French Revolution. The political element is not a
mere background, but is woven into the plot with consummate skill, being
used, at one point, for example, in the characterization of Dorothea, who
before the time of her appearance in the poem has been deprived of her
first betrothed by the guillotine; and, at another, in furnishing a telling
contrast between the revolutionary uproar in France and the settled peace
of the German village.
The characters of the father and the minister Goethe took over from
the original incident, the mother he invented, and the apothecary he made
to stand for a group of friends. But all of these persons, as well as the two
lovers, are recreated, and this so skillfully that while they are made
notably familiar to us as individuals, they are no less significant as
permanent types of human nature. The hexameter measure which he
employed, and which is retained in the present translation, he handled with
suc