Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914)
Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern (May 6, 1871 in Munich- March 31, 1914 in Meran) was a German author and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on March 7, 1910. He worked for a while as a journalist in Berlin, but spent much of his life traveling through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, primarily in a vain attempt to recover his health. His travels, though they failed to restore him to health, allowed him to meet many of the foremost literary and philosophical figures of his time in central Europe. Morgenstern's poetry, much of which was inspired by English literary nonsense, is immensely popular, even though he enjoyed very little success during his lifetime. He made fun of scholasticism, e.g. literary criticism in "Drei Hasen", grammar in "Der Werwolf", narrow-mindedness in "Der Gaul", and symbolism in "Der Wasseresel". In "Scholastikerprobleme" he discussed how many angels could sit on a needle. Still many Germans know some of his poems and quotations by heart, e.g. the following line from "The Impossible Fact" ("Die unmgliche Tatsache", 1910): Weil, so schliet er messerscharf / Nicht sein kann, was nicht sein darf. "For, he reasons pointedly / That which must not, can not be. " Embedded in his humorous poetry is a subtle metaphysical streak, as e.g. in "Vice Versa", (1905): Ein Hase sitzt auf einer Wiese des Glaubens, niemand she diese. Doch im Besitze eines Zeies betrachtet voll gehaltnen Fleies vom vis--vis gelegnen Berg ein Mensch den kleinen Lffelzwerg. Ihn aber blickt hinwiederum ein Gott von fern an, mild und stumm. "A rabbit in his meadow lair Imagines none to see him there. But aided by a looking lens A man with eager diligence Inspects the tiny long-eared gnome From a convenient near-by dome. Yet him surveys, or so we learn A god from far off, mild and stern. " Gerolf Steiner's mock-scientific book about the fictitious animal order Rhinogradentia (1961), inspired by Morgenstern's nonsense poem Das Nasobm, is testament to his enduring popularity. Morgenstern died in 1914 of tuberculosis, which he had contracted from his mother, who died in 1881.
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