Friday 20 September 2013

Christian Morgenstern

Fragment of a letter taken and translated from "Über die Galgenlieder/ On the Gallows Songs"

Moreover (a sense of ) humour is after all just (a sense of) humour  and always has its very own meaning and - seriousness. Yes, it's its mission, at least nowadays, to lighten or crumble a little bit people's dull, gloomy seriousness, that the materialistic presence entangles them in.

Embraced by a time, that essentially receives its slogans from scholars and is thus condemned on all sides to impasse, he (the contemporary human being) feels that he can breathe more freely when confronted with such verse. Like the atmosphere of overwhelming severity and clumsiness of the so-called physical plan, that is decreed today with all the bitter seriousness of an era, that has become spirit- and godless, is cheerfully corrected, burst, yes, sometimes even apparently turned topsyturvy.

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