"So laß mich dein Minnesänger sein!" – "So Let me be Your Love-Poet!" On Hedwig Caspari Biblical Poems

Anat Koplowitz-Breier

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Hedwig Caspari (1882-1922) was born and lived in Berlin. Although Jewish, we cannot be certain of what sort of education she received or the nature of her Jewish identity: this is due to the fact that at the beginning of the twentieth century, German Jewry was characterized by a rather diverse series of identities and currents. She published two books during her lifetime—a play entitled Salomos Abfall (1920) and a volume of poetry entitled Elohim (1919). In addition to the latter, we know of the existence of two unpublished manuscripts, Das Blut (a play) and J.N.R J. (poetry book), both of which are, alas, lost. She published numerous poems in daily newspapers and expressionist journals of the time, as well In total we have 24 poems by her and most of which deal with biblical themes. My paper will focus on what I wish to call "Caspari's biblical poetry" as exemplified in her 1919 book, ELOHIM. Within the framework of this text, Caspari approaches the Bible from a number of angles, creating a polymorphic re-narration of the original stories. Most of her biblical poems may be considered as what Leslie Cushing Stahlberg referred to as “biblical afterlives,” an elaboration and retelling of biblical stories. In fact, in the poems where she focuses on specific biblical characters like Abishag, Jerubbaal, Moses, or Job, or on a number of biblical situations ("Der Turmbau zu Babel", "Da sahen die Kinder Gottes nach den Töchtern der Menschen", "Erkenntnis", etc.), Caspari demonstrates her skill in weaving narratives from the sparse information provided by the biblical texts, filling the gaps with thoughts and feelings of her own, and combining the Biblical settings with new circumstances. This creative approach is blatant in some of her more esoteric poems, in which she creates entirely new worlds anchored in the Biblical sources, as in the case of a six-poem cycle "1. Chronika 1 – 12" where the dry genealogy in 1 Chr 1:1–12 is transmuted into a colorful and imaginative artifact. As I wish to demonstrate, Caspari's Biblically fashioned creativity is intimately related to, if not a consequence of, her unique relationship with God: her poetry was the inspired creation of a prophet, producing texts such as "Propheten" or "Psalm" which she saw on the same level as the songs of David and the prophecies of the Bible. The Hedwig Caspari I wish to shed light on, while traditionally considerd by scholars as expressionist poet, used a rich repertoire of metaphors, coined neologisms, and incastonated biblical allusions within her literary creations, and thereby gave shape to a distinctive poetical language of her own. Caspari's biblical poetry lies in her ability to "break" the biblical frame and use it in order to build a springboard for the utter novelty of her ideas, presenting the modern reader with a rare example of a new, creative hermeneutic approach to the Biblical text.
Original languageAmerican English
StatePublished - 2016
EventACLA Annual Meeting: The Bible in Modernity - ACLA, Cambridge, Mass., United States
Duration: 16 Mar 201619 Mar 2016

Conference

ConferenceACLA Annual Meeting: The Bible in Modernity
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityCambridge, Mass.
Period16/03/1619/03/16

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  • Conference Contributed

    Koplowitz-Brayer, A. (Invited speaker)

    16 Mar 201619 Mar 2016

    Activity: Talk or presentationInvited talk

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