Andersen puts paid to Romanticism!

Andersen and his rhyme devil!

The Rhyme Devil

______

 “μη εισενεγκης ημας εις πειρασμον”

(lead us not into temptation)

______

Before with ink on paper I’ll now scribble,

A tiny quibble:

Are spirits real, dear reader, con or pro?

– “No!!!” –

That’s rather negative, but it’s no matter,

Just answer reader when you’ve heard my chatter!

– When you’ve consumed those peas you can’t resist,

Do you dare claim that no more peas exist?

If in your body there’s a spirit dwelling

Is faith compelling?

Each son of Adam knows that this is true,

And this confirms there are more spirits too;

Should this, dear reader, not be proof conclusive,

Read Swedenborg – but no, he’s too elusive! –

– Most spirits here on earth are quite capricious,

And vicious;

Their proto-genius with such bad taste

Pulled in the waist:

Tight stays for officers and ladies’ corsets

Then cruelly forced it.

And such a devil or a little pixie

So tricksy

Was that same serpent who in paradise

Whispered in French to Eve: ‘That apple’s nice!’

– Though let me not too greatly be digressing,

But all my troubles here on paper be expressing,

With quill of slaughtered goose them be addressing.

– Orestes, when pursued by Hell’s three Graces

And their embraces,

E’en Don Juan on fire

Are child’s play ’gainst my misery entire;

Know this, as far back as I have remembrance

Ah, what dependence,

I have a little devil in attendance;

He lives within, without, all intertwining,

Though his precise shape would defy defining,

Awake or dreaming, he is always priming,

Ensures I can’t stop – rhyming. –

When deaths occur

I note that others feel his painful spur,

And never shirking,

Newpaper offices are where he’s lurking,

Although from me he never got a thing,

He still would cling.

– Even at school with Typto and Amare

I felt him in my limbs a constant flurry,

And at exams too – those dire Days of Peril –

His grip was feral,

Although at nighttime Baden’s grammar book

Would scare me with its Robespierre look.

Like him – – ( his name eludes me now,

That’s bad I vow,

In Horace’s Epistles though it’s stated,

I’ve heard related),

Who cloth, earth, water – when once touched I’m told –

Would transform into gold,

That’s how things are for me, always combining

Things end up rhyming;

With people chiming

And shouting at me angrily anew:

‘Stop rhyming, do!’

Ah, Lord God! that is what I wish for dearly,

’Neath some unlucky star I’m born quite clearly.

Dejected

When this or that’s ejected,

I have to write an elegy in iambics,

And now am glad – for out come dithyrambics.

Oh, if from my rhyme devil I could safe be!

Not even my own death will he vouchsafe me:

Of late I Pebling Lake would let enslave me,

My swan-song stood well-written on its sheet;

Already I’d instructed my two feet,

But as I now, from far off, glimpse the water

My devil sends me from some rural quarter

A friend. We talk of – nothing, matters fleeting,

There’s no point in repeating

The long talk that we had – there’s nought to tell,

The subject though on poetry then fell,

Deep, mourning longing soon in me had risen

To take my song out from its pocket prison,

And read to him my farewell elegy

While people on the road passed silently;

For to be honest – which costs not a penny –

I share this fault with many,

And I am sure my devil makes me stock it,

I have a poem ready in some pocket,

So woe to any friend who I discover,

He’ll have to suffer! –

As here, the last line I had hardly read

Before from Pebling Lake all thoughts had fled;

I felt so good that I had mastered rhyming,

And what good timing.

But only lately

Despair assailed me greatly,

The Round Tower then was my great consolation,

And for my urge to rhyme a palliation;

As I walked past small houses and pavilions

Ignoring life’s bright cotton-clad civilians,

Wool stockings, socks, shawls, ribbons ruby red,

That hung both left and right above my head,

Shunned Reitzel’s bookcase on the brown-brick wall,

Because the street felt cramped and far too small;

I felt first cold, then hot, then cold once more,

As up its winding stairs I took each floor;

But once with tearful eye I’d reached the summit

And down would plummet,

Who then can blame me, ere I took my bound,

I felt the urge to have a look around?

– The brown-tiled roofs it seemed at me were beaming

In twilight’s gleaming,

And there

A tailor sang up in his attic lair,

And while his neighbour’s jacket he sat sewing

Both song and chimney smoke were upward flowing;

In white coats ships at sea seemed to be flying,

And Svea’s yellow hills I too was spying.

For truly

I’d be unduly

Insensitive, less than a huge fieldstone,

Had my emotions not been, every one,

Afflicted

By what I just now poorly have depicted.

I stared, I wrote, I then stared once again

At roofs and tailor and the sky’s domain;

Through city streets the carriage noise seemed louder

With almost Catalonian Roulades,

Soon on the paper a fresh ode I spied,

Of which I nothing grasped although I tried.

I wrote and wrote – the spheres I could hear singing,

And so forgot my springing, –

That’s how things were, and how they’ll always be,

A devil rhymer may know victory:

Ah, if hats and coats in fields one could see growing,

If dawn was something one could eat or touch,

I’d let the whole world talk to overflowing;

But such

An Eldorado is but dreaming.

Although, who knows, when my shroud needs but seaming,

The final coffin board too has been made;

I hope, when over me the lid is laid,

That this inscription may describe my calling:

‘He did no harm, just filled sheets with his scrawling.’

Early days - Hans Christian Andersen the teenage poet

Andersen's 'Avis aux lectrices', first published 29 March 1830

Andersen's 'The dying Child'

'The dying Child' is an epoch-making text, because Andersen's poetic elevation of the thoughts and speech of a child, which bear the form of the poem, broke with all sorts of norms as to what good and correct literature should look like in the 1820s (the poem dates from 1826). So deep and complete a bowing of the knee to the nature of a child had not been attempted anywhere in the world - not even Goethe in his poem about Erlkönig from the end of the 18th century had attempted this.
(Jens Andersen, Andersen, vol. I, p. 154):

Bellman and Charon

Fredman’s Epistle No. 79

Charon his horn is sounding,

Storm winds commence their howling,

Hawsers, ropes, sails start bounding

and come loose apace;

Moon’s nightly round is ending

Stars gleam with dismal cowling,

To its great change is bending

Life’s allotted space;

Soon will my hour-glass have emptied,

Charon’s oars all have attempted,

           Purling they burrow

           Deep in each furrow,

           Through bright waves sliding,

           Death’s bark is gliding,

Jet-black the funeral ferry down the river strokes

           To dust and smoke://:

           And ghosts’ loud bays.

Landladies oh so dashing,

Brace me for this my journey,

When on my fathers’ ashes

I’ll be heaped tonight.

Red-faced and voice quite throttled

Innkeepers stand there sternly,

Chalk me up nigh a bottle

For my hat – that’s right.

Ma’am take the slate at the counter,

Rub out two pence for the flounder;

           Likewise please cut a

           Penny for butter;

           Further the eel-fish

           There in the green-dish;

Further the plump potato on which now I dine,

           It was most fine ://:

           And round and light.

While at my tankard sitting,

I my last will am writing;

This document most fitting,

Read, Ma’am, I implore;

Gone is this world’s dominion,

See how its taste’s more biting,

Heaven with stars its minions

Now above me soar.

I keep my tankard in motion –

Clang, what a brew, what a potion,

           Foam mounts and frizzles,

           Froth almost sizzles,

           Drops in full spate float

           Down on my greatcoat.

That hit the spot, Ma’am Maja, that was beer that sang.

           Clang, Ma’am, cling-clang! ://:

           Off Charon’s shore.

My head droops at all angles,

All of me’s forward nosing,

It seems my neck just dangles.

But, ye Gods, I wince

As tearful eyed I’m glaring

At all my rags imposing

Which once, no padding sparing,

Buttoned as if pinned;

Aren’t though my breeches quite charming,

These garments oh so disarming?

           Waistcoat’s distended

           All the rest mended

           Stockings in creases,

           Heels worn to pieces,

And that fine shirt, Ma’am Maja, was – please note my thrift –

           Beckman’s wife’s shift ://:

           Just two years since.

Now midships I stand quaking,

Heav’ns, how the rudder’s creaking,

Shadows all for the taking,

Lapping waves so slight;

Aeolus drowns all crying,

Charon’s shrill whistle’s shrieking,

Help! Hear dark shadows sighing

How their moans affright;

Thunder and northern lights’ flashes,

Lightning that through the sky dashes

           Arched o’er the river,

           See the Plough quiver,

           Stars no more quicken.

           Shores slowly thicken,

Till from the sombre shadow all last light departs;

           My torment starts. ://
           So, Ma’am, good night!

'Svarta Rudolf' - a great Erik Axel Karlfeldt favourite

Svarta Rudolf

Se svarta Rudolf han dansar,

han böjer sin nacke och ler.

Han tänker på stormande nätter

i Amsterdams glädjekvarter.

||: Han drömmer om flickornas kransar

           och svävande bruna ben

           på stranden av blåa slätter

           vid samoamånens sken. :||

Han böjer sin nacke och blundar

i flygande roslagsvals.

Så höll han i smäktande lundar

sin arm om chilenskans hals;

||: Så böjde han krullig hjässa

           en afton i negerbyn,

           mot trettonårig prinsessa

           med eldsken i ebenholtzhyn. :||

Så dansa de svajiga karlar

på Malagas vinstänkta redd.

Den vitröda tösen hon bävar,

bedårad, förlorad, förledd.

||: Hun ler i den väldiges nävar

           åt allt vad han tog och han gav,

           hon suckar och vinden svarar

           från Ålands jäsande hav. :||

Black-haired Rudolph

Look, black-haired Rudolph, he’s dancing,

he bends his head slightly and smiles.

He’s thinking of wild nights of pleasure

where Amsterdam’s red light beguiles.

||: He’s dreaming of wreathed girls romancing,

           their brown legs that sway to each tune,

           Samoa’s smooth beaches quite azure

           beneath the Pacific’s bright moon. :||

His eyes closed, he bends his head slightly,

the Roslagen waltz whirls him on.

As once in dark groves he held lightly

a Chilean girl’s neck like a swan;

||: As once his black curls he inclined to –

           in some shanty town late at night –

           a youthful princess he’d a mind to

           with ebony skin shot with light. :||

So dance all the swaying young fellows

on Malaga’s wine-spattered piers

The blushing pale lass slowly mellows,

enchanted, entranced and all ears.

||: She smiles as huge fists hold her tightly

           at all that he took and he gave,

           she sighs and the wind answers quietly

           from Åland’s turbulent waves. :||

To hear an old 78 recording, go to here

'Violen från Flen' - a great Olrog favourite

Violen från Flen

Det står en vacker flicka i en bokhandel i Flen,

och drömmer ibland böcker så allén.

Där finns till salu smått och gott,

mest papper och kuvert,

men ändå annonserar man såhär:

Köp en Hjalmar Gullberg eller Vilhelm Moberg,

men köp den av Violen från Flen.

All bildning och kultur, verkligt rara djur,

får ni av Violen från Flen.

Äventyr och sagor finns uti vårt lager


där sånggudinnan går på lätta ben.

Prosa och lyrik, kanske romantik,


får ni av Violen från Flen.

När ortens unga glopar går på jakt så verkar de'

municipalsamhälls-jeunesse-dorée.

Och frågar de Violen om hon vill gå med dem ut,

så rodnar hon och svarar så till slut:

Allt kan ni begära, av det litterära,

ja allting av Parnassens fenomen.

Men praktisk romantik, eller erotik,

finns ej hos Violen från Flen.

Tag i stället för er, av små bokprimörer,

ta' småvarmt från den Bonnierska buffén.

Bildning och kultur, verkligt rara djur,

får ni av Violen från Flen.

The Violet of Flen

A lovely girl stands lonely in a bookshop out in Flen,

and dreams among the books of her domain.

On sale are paper, envelopes,

and mostly bibs and bobs,

despite this though advertisements proclaim:

Buy a Hjalmar Gullberg or a Vilhelm Moberg,

but buy it from the Violet of Flen.

All your cultural feasts, truly snuggly beasts,

you’ll get from the Violet of Flen.

We stock stirring stories, tales of former glories


here the muse of song delights to reign.

Poetry and prose, romance too who knows,


you’ll get from the Violet of Flen.

When local whippersnappers go out hunting or foray

they seem to be the town’s jeunesse dorée.

And if they ask the Violet if she’d like to join the guys,

she blushes and she finally replies:

All you could desire, literature entire,

and that which to Parnassus might pertain.

Though all cooing doves, and erotic love’s

not stocked by the Violet of Flen.

Take though for nutrition, early small editions,

from Bonnier’s buffet do not abstain.

All your cultural feasts, truly snuggly beasts,

you’ll get from the Violet of Flen.

Listen to Sven-Bertil Taube sing it on Spotify!