Poem for April 2019: Enshrouded in grey clouds by Heinrich Heine (update 2.8.2020)

                               Der Mönch am Meer (Monk at the seaside), Caspar David Friedrich (1808-1810), 
                                     oil on canvas, 110x171,5 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin. 
                                     Quellen: Google Art Project, de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Mönch_am_Meer
                            

         Enshrouded in Grey Clouds

         Enshrouded in grey clouds,

         asleep the great gods lie,

         I hear them snoring,

         and wild weather is upon us.

        Wild weather, indeed! - A storm is raging,

        willing to blast this poor old ship.

        alas, these winds, who ´ll rein them in?

        and the unbound, masterless waves?

        I can´t stop the storm from raging,

        making boards and masthead boom.

        and in my cloak enshroud myself

        to sleep just like the gods.

         Heinrich Heine, Nachgelesene Gedichte

        (Weeded-out poems), 1812-27

In Greek mythology the gods live, love and argue like humans, and what they do or leave undone has an impact on life in the world. In Heine´s poem they are asleep, while a fierce storm is raging. Only they could pacify the forces of nature by commanding the winds and the waves to lay off, but they are unaware of what is happening. Finally, the speaker follows their example, enshrouds himself in his cloak and lies down to sleep. Thus, he imitates the gods.

This move is expressive of a conscious detachment from the depicted scene. The events represented in the second stanza ‘[…] A storm is raging,/ set to blast this poor old ship./ alas, these winds […]’ come across as dramatic. The final image of the speaker going to sleep, however, indicates his inner distance and suggests an ironic overtone. It conveys his awareness that there won´t be a miraculous rescue.

Heine´s interest in current affairs suggests an allegorical meaning. After the Congress in Vienna in 1815, the princely rulers of the German states under the predominance of the Austrian Empire basically restored absolute rule and oppressed forces demanding freedom and more rights. With the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 police powers were extended, and far-reaching censorship was established.[1] The Gods stand for the princes of the early 19th century, the ship corresponds to the contemporary state and the social order it was based on. The storm is a metaphor for the longed-for revolution of the people that was to bring about a more democratic, constitutional German nation state.

On closer examination, there is a crucial difference between relations on the literal level (initial text[2]) - the gods, the ship and the storm - on the one hand and those on the allegorical level - the princes, the social order and the angry people - on the other, which confirms the suspicion of irony created by the speaker going to sleep. While the gods cannot be dethroned, the princes are not invincible, so they cannot actually afford to sleep, that is, to ignore the protests and postpone necessary reforms indefinitely. Thus the irony implies criticism of these rulers.

Unlike the princes, the speaker does not have any influence on the workings of history ('I can´t stop the storm from raging', stanza three), the revolution is going to run its course, anyway. When he enshrouds himself in his coat and lies down, he makes a pretentious gesture. Despite being powerless, he compares himself with the Gods. Even though he remains exposed to the storm, as a commoner the speaker has more liberty than the nobility, which is another ironic discrepancy. On the one hand it points to his vulnerability, on the other hand to the option of at least keeping his composure as a first step to attaining inner freedom and dignity.
    We can imagine the speaker to be a persona of the poet himself, who was a keen observer of the political developments in contemporary Germany. Heine wrote in a situation of political oppression. The poem does not refer explicitly to the circumstances, and at first glance the initial text veils the allegorical meaning. However, it can be easily decoded, and the ironic effect conveys the unspoken criticism. Both allegory as the mode of presentation and irony as a poetic device can be pictured as the author´s cloak, in which he enshrouds his poem and himself. Both can be considered as defence strategies against the interference of the authorities.[3]

Whereas the poem ‘All Enshrouded in Grey Clouds’ contains only veiled criticism, Heine did not conceal his political position in many of his other works. These writings were directed against the autocratic policies of the princes of the German Confederation whose repressive measures became even more rigorous after the Hambach Festival of 1832. Their author himself was an advocate of a liberal democratic constitutional state, but he was at the same time critical of radical republicans like Ludwig Börne.[4] Riots against Jews, censorship and the upsurge of anti-liberal Christian forces in Germany finally led him to immigrate to France in 1831, where he lived until the end of his life.[5]

In the wake of the Cholera epidemic of 1832 in France, Heine learned what the consequences of revolution might be for the insurgents, when demonstrations against the July Monarchy were brutally crushed by government troops.[6] As a well-to-do exile, however, who was welcomed in the salons of the upper middle classes, he was in a sense enshrouded in a protective coat. On the other hand, by refusing to comply with the prescriptions of the authorities, he exposed himself to attacks by Christian-conservative authors loyal to the regime and ran the risk of his works being banned. While loyalists made a bogeyman out of the French and their country, because it was admired for its liberal-mindedness among the advocates for political change, Heine set out to explain France to the Germans and Germany to the French.

Although he did not hide his political affiliations, he saw himself as an independent artist, who does not actively campaign for a cause.[7] Apart from being a prominent voice of the democratic opposition, Heine was also vulnerable because of his family background. As a Jew he suffered from discrimination as well as from Anti-Semitic insults. He witnessed Anti-Semitic riots both as a youth in his home town of Düsseldorf in 1819 and as an adult in Hamburg in 1830. They were one of his reasons for going into self-imposed exile.

Beyond the historical context the situation outlined in the poem can arise at any time when dissatisfaction with the government grows because they refuse to carry out reforms. As a consequence social tensions build up and protests are likely to erupt. Most recently, a series of incidents of police violence against Afro-Americans has triggered protests against systemic discrimination and racism in the US.

Worldwide the paralysis of governments with regard to the fast-progressing climate change has caused the young generation to stage protests, which found increasing support in the course of 2019. Still, by the beginning of 2020 there were hardly any binding commitments to implement the measures necessary to contain climate change. It is not unlikely that the corona pandemic leads to a further catastrophic postponement of effective action. With regard to climate change governments all over the world are asleep, and too many people do not seem to care much, either or have other priorities. We are in for a rude awakening.

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[1] Rolf Hosfeld, Heinrich Heine. Die Erfindung des europäischen Intellektuellen. München: Siedler Verlag, 2014, 53.

[2] Kurz, Gerhard (1982/2009) Metapher, Allegorie, Symbol, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 6. Auflage, 44. In this chapter, Kurz explains Quilligan´s terminology for the analysis of allegorical texts. She distinguishes between the so-called initial text with its initial meaning and the allegorical interpretation of the text. What the text obviously expresses is its initial meaning, but it also contains clues pointing to an underlying allegorical level. The narrative the reader arrives at by connecting the clues, is his/her allegorical interpretation of the text.

[3] The works of Dmitri Shostakovich can be cited as another example of the use of irony in a situation of extreme political oppression (cp. Chapter VI in this essay collection on Pasternak´s poem ‘Hamlet’. In his fictional biography Julian Barnes writes about the function of irony for the composer: ‘All his life he had relied on irony. He imagined that the trait had been born in the usual place. In the gap between how we imagine, or suppose, or hope life will turn out, and the way it actually does. So irony becomes a defence of the self and the soul, it lets you breathe on a day-to-day basis.’, The Noise of Time, Chapter 3.

[4] Rolf Hosfeld, Heinrich Heine. 278.

[5] Rolf Hosfeld, Heinrich Heine, 224-6.

[6] Rolf Hosfeld, Heinrich Heine, 272.

[7] Rolf Hosfeld, Heinrich Heine., 253.