Poems - Franz Werfel Franz Werfel Author - nouveau livre

Translated by jj i EDITH ABERCROMBIE SNOW jjgj If 1 i - 3 1 Published by Princeton University Press, at Princeton, New Jersey, 1945 W fi THESE TRANSLATIONS ARE DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY PARENTS DANIEL WEBSTER ABERCROMBIE AND EMILY BRAINERD ABERCROMBIE FOREWORD THE POEMS included in this book came into being over a period of thirty years from 1908 to 1938 and were taken from seven dif ferent volumes. The tides of these volumes Der Weltjreund, Wir sind f Einander, Gerichtstag, Eeschworungen, Schlaj und Erwachen, Botschaft vom irdischen Leben indicate that they are not casual collections of verses but rather lyric works of unified content and structure. The fifty poems of this anthology are therefore seen out of their context. They are, moreover, trans lated poems. Translated poems are an impossibility. Whenever this impossibility becomes a possibility the translator, transcend ing his bounds, becomes a poet in his own right. Verse, which springs from the increased emotional pressure of human con sciousness, crystallizes language in the same way in which in creased mechanical pressure produces crystals from amorphous minerals. Amethysts cannot be translated. Similar pressure upon another crystalline substance however, may create a topaz. Such a translation is a rare good fortune. Every word has a different history in every language, a different world of associations and connotations. In everyday speech the content facilitates its own rendition. The poetic word, however, casts shadows history and associations resonate in it and give it life. The translator must choose such words that his own verse language casts corresponding shadows, so that his own lines may be filled with theresonating connotations that make the lyric into a work of art. For this reason the translators art is one of the most difficult and one of the most unrewarding arts. I am profoundly grateful to Mrs. Edith Abercrombie Snow for her years of unrelenting struggle with my poems, many of which are not easily accessible even in their native tongue. Al though I, as a foreigner, am not capable of estimating the full mi extent of her success, still I am deeply conscious o the fact that Mrs. Snow was the first to give the Anglo-American public access to that part of my life-work which I myself regard as the most important. FRANZ WERFEL Beverly Hills, California July, 1945 mil ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To FRANZ WERFEL I am indebted for the many hours he spent reading and discussing these poems with me and ex plaining their inner meaning. Mr. Werfels generously expressed faith and confidence in the work and his friendly encouragement are deeply appreciated. My thanks also to Dr. Harold S. Jantz for his scholarly criticism and his good offices in the matter of publication, to Dr. Gustave O. Arlt for his valued opinion and sug gestions rendered at the request of Mr. Werfel, and to Emmi Peter Akeret for her unfailing interest and inspira tion. With the exception of one poem, Exaltation, these trans lations are from poems selected from the volume entitled, Gedichte aus dreifiig Jahren, by Franz Werfel, printed in Stockholm, 1939, and published by the Behrmann-Fischer Verlag. The poems are from the following books of that anthology Jugendgedichte, 1908-1915 Der Weltfreund, Wir Sind, Einander In Krieg und Wirrer Zeit, 1914-1924 Der Gerichtstag, Beschworungen Neue Gedichte, 1925-1958 Schlaf und Erwachen EinTotenpsalter, Buch der Unruh, Hymnarium, Gedichte 1938. Since the poems in this volume constitute only a selection and therefore cannot give the whole picture o Mr. Werfel as a poet, it is well for the reader to remember that no study of modern German poetry is complete without a knowledge of Franz Werfels poetic works. His poetry inaugurated, a fresh, new way of thinking, was couched in new forms, and thus had a deep influence on German youth and on European letters. Mr. Werfel was a great novelist and playwright, but it is as a poet that he will live longest. E. A. S...