Lenore (ballad)

In the 18th century there were around three hundred different German-speaking political entities in Central Europe. During this period, due to influences from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Latin and French dominated over the German language, and German literature had mostly been modelled after French and Italian literature. These factors led few scholars to recognize the existence of a distinct German culture or literature. In order to gain acknowledgement for the German language and thus acquire a distinctively German literary tradition from which it would be possible to get a sense of nationality, philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder believed that it was necessary to preserve German idioms, since they were the element that gave the language its idiosyncrasy and distinguished it from others: and John William Weidemeyer (1865), but this was contested by Johann Heinrich Voss, who claimed this song dates to the same time as Bürger's. It is similar to the Scottish ballad of "Sweet William's Ghost" collected in Percy's Reliques. William Taylor has also compared Lenore to "an obscure English ballad called 'The Suffolk Miracle, in which a young man appears to his sweetheart, who has no knowledge that he had already died, and carries her on horseback for forty miles until the man complains he has a headache, which leads the maid to tie her handkerchief around his head. After they depart, the young maid returns home and is informed by her father that her lover had in fact died, whereupon he goes to the young man's grave and digs up the bones, finding that his daughter's handkerchief is tied around the skull. ==Synopsis==

Although the Battle of Prague is over, William, the fiancé of a young woman named Lenore, has not returned from the Seven Years' War yet. Ever since he had gone to battle in the army of King Frederick, Lenore has been impatiently worrying about William every day and longing for his return, but she has not heard any news from him. When the other warriors return from the war without William, she begins to quarrel with God, complaining about His unfairness and proclaiming that He has never done her any good, which prompts her mother to ask for her daughter's forgiveness because she knows that such a thought is blasphemous and will condemn her to Hell. At midnight, a mysterious stranger who looks like William knocks on the door searching for Lenore and asks her to accompany him on horseback to their marriage bed. Lenore happily gets on the stranger's black steed and the two ride at a frenetic pace, under the moonlight, along a path filled with eerie landscapes. Terrorised, Lenore demands to know why they are riding so fast, to which he responds that they are doing so because "the dead travel fast" (). Lenore asks William to "leave the dead alone" (). At sunrise, their journey ends and they arrive at the cemetery's doors. As the horse goes through the tombstones, the knight begins to lose its human appearance, and is revealed as Death, a skeleton with a scythe and an hourglass. The marriage bed is shown to be the grave where, together with his ruined clothes, William's skeleton lies. The ground beneath Lenore's feet begins to crumble and the spirits, dancing in the moonlight, surround dying Lenore, declaring that "no one is to quarrel with God in Heaven" (). However, Lenore, punished with death, still has hope for forgiveness ( / ). == Reception and impact ==

Lenore had a profound effect on the development of Romantic literature throughout Europe and a strong influence on the English ballad-writing revival of the 1790s. According to German language scholar John George Robertson, The translation, however, was completed in 1790, and it had already been "declaimed, applauded and much discussed in Norwich literary circles". After Walter Scott heard how enthusiastically a crowd at Dugald Stewart's house had reacted to a reading of Taylor's version done by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, he attempted to acquire a manuscript of Bürger's original. In 1794, when he had finally received one, he was so impressed by it that he made his own rendering, William and Helen, in less than a day. Scott's version was passed from hand to hand, and was extremely well received. Other notable translators of Lenore into English include Frederic Shoberl, Julia Margaret Cameron and John Oxenford. while Vasily Zhukovsky and Pavel Katenin published translations in Russian. A version in Italian was made by Giovanni Berchet and both Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto and Juan Valera made their own translations to Spanish. Gérard de Nerval, who was obsessed with the text, published five translations in French, two in prose and three in verse. Between 1797 and 1800, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote Christabel, which according to some German critics was influenced by Bürger's Lenore. We can also find a strong influence of Lenora in the ballad Escape (1832, Ucieczka) by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. Percy Bysshe Shelley was also impressed by Lenore and treasured a copy of the poem which he had handwritten himself. Shelley biographer Charles S. Middleton further suggests that "it is hinted, somewhat plausibly, that the Leonora of Bürgher first awakened his poetic faculty. A tale of such beauty and terror might well have kindled his lively imagination". Charles Dickens alludes to the thought that "The dead travel fast" in A Christmas Carol (1843), during an exchange between Scrooge and the ghost of Marley ("You travel fast?" said Scrooge. "On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.) The poem, and its verse ("Leave the dead in peace"), inspired Ernst Raupach's 1823 short story "" ("Let the Dead Rest"). ==Adaptations==

Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky wrote two free adaptations of Bürger's ballad: Lyudmila (1808), which is considered the first Russian ballad, and Svetlana (1813). In both of these, Zhukovsky gave the story a Russian setting. Zhukovsky also wrote a more accurate translation in 1831, maintaining the original title and setting. Zhukovsky's contemporary Pavel Katenin freely adapted the story of Lenore in his own work Olga (1816). In 1828, Karl von Holtei wrote Lenore, a dramatization of Bürger's ballad which achieved great popularity. Several composers have written pieces based on, or inspired by, Lenore. Joachim Raff's Symphony No. 5, named Lenore, one of his best-regarded works and which he finished writing in 1872, has been described by pianist Donald Ellman as "a most important pivotal work between early and late-romantic styles". It also inspired Klughardt's Symphony No. 1 of 1873. In 1874, Henri Duparc wrote his symphonic poem Lénore, which was then arranged for two pianos by Camille Saint-Saëns and for piano duet by César Franck. Musicologist Julien Tiersot called it "one of the best models of its kind". Maria Theresia von Paradis also composed a ballad for voice and piano in 1789 based on Lenore. Lenore has also inspired several illustrations by a large number of notable artists, including Carl Oesterley, Daniel Chodowiecki, Ary Scheffer, Horace Vernet, Johann Christian Ruhl, Hermann Plüddemann, Johann Heinrich Ramberg, Louis Boulanger, Otto Schubert, Eugen Napoleon Neureuther, Karl Friedrich Lessing, Frank Kirchbach, Georg Emanuel Opiz, William Blake, Franz Stassen, Franz Kolbrand, Octave Penguilly L'Haridon, Wilhelm Emelé, Alfred Elmore and Frank Stone. Lady Diana Beauclerk's depictions of the ballad were published in William Robert Spencer's rendering, while Daniel Maclise and Moritz Retzsch illustrated Julia Margaret Cameron and Frederic Shoberl's translations, respectively. a sister story to Icelandic ghost story/folk tale The Deacon of the Dark River. == References ==