“Auf eine Lampe” by Eduard Mörike: Autonomy and Heterogeneity of the ‘Classical’ Form
Angel Valentinov Angelov
Eduard Mörike’s poem “Auf eine Lampe” is the most frequently interpreted of all his poetical works, which can be proved by the bibliography to his critical editions. The history of the interpretations in a miniature manifests how the approach towards the poetical text as well as to the history of German literature during the last sixty years changes.
In the first part of the article, I analyse several interpretations of the poem, which are representative for a specific modern attitude towards literature. I do not bring in question the interpreters’ perspicacity or sensibility but their grounds and the social function of their interpretations.
In the second part, I try to give proofs of the instability of the lamp’s classical form, as well as of its heterogeneity, in which intermingle Antique, Oriental and European elements from the nineteenth century. I also discuss the social function of the classical form.
I conclude that what is usually presented as a classical form in “Auf eine Lampe” is an intermingling in the adoption of the Antique tradition and the Oriental exoticism, which was popular in various European countries during the first half of the nineteenth century. The lamp’s classical form in Mörike’s “Auf eine Lampe” is unstable and the space where the lamp ‘shines’ is non-European
