Else Lasker-Schüler
Encyclopedia
Else Lasker-Schüler was a Jewish German
poet
and playwright famous for her bohemian
lifestyle in Berlin
. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Lasker-Schüler fled Nazi Germany
and lived out the rest of her life in Jerusalem.
, now a district of Wuppertal
. Her mother, Jeannette Schüler (née Kissing) was a central figure in her poetry, and the main character of her play Die Wupper was inspired by her father, Aaron Schüler, a Jewish banker.
In 1894, Else married the physician
and occasional chess player, Jonathan Berthold Lasker
(the older brother of Emanuel Lasker
, a World Chess Champion
) and moved with him to Berlin
, where she trained as an artist. On August 24, 1899 her son Paul was born and her first poems were published. She published her first full volume of poetry
, Styx, three years later, in 1902. On April 11, 1903, she and Berthold Lasker divorced and on November 30, she married Georg Lewin. His pseudonym, Herwarth Walden
, was her invention.
Lasker-Schüler's first prose
work, Das Peter-Hille-Buch, was published in 1906, after the death of Hille, one of her closest friends. In 1907, she published the prose collection Die Nächte der Tino von Bagdad, followed by the play "Die Wupper" in 1909, which was not performed until later. A volume of poetry called the Meine Wunder, published in 1911, established Lasker-Schüler as the leading female representative of German expressionism
.
After separating from Herwarth Walden in 1910 and divorcing him in 1912, she found herself penniless and dependent on the financial support of her friends, in particular Karl Kraus
. That year, she met Gottfried Benn
. An intense friendship developed between them which found its literary outlet in a large number of love poems dedicated to him. The death of her son in 1927, however, sent her into a deep depression.
Despite winning the Kleist Prize in 1932, as a Jew she was physically harassed and threatened by the Nazis. She emigrated to Zürich
but there, too, she could not work. She traveled to Palestine
in 1934 and finally settled in Jerusalem in 1937. In 1938 she was stripped of her German citizenship and the outbreak of World War II
prevented any return to Europe
.
In 1944 Lasker-Schüler's health deteriorated. She suffered a heart attack on January 16, and died in Jerusalem on January 22, 1945. She was buried on the Mount of Olives
.
Lasker-Schüler wrote her first and most important play, Die Wupper, in 1908. It was published in 1909 and the first performance took place on April 27, 1919 at the Deutsche Theater in Berlin
.
A large part of her work is composed of love poetry, but there are also deeply religious poems and prayers. Transitions between the two are often quite fluid. Her later work is particularly rich in biblical and oriental motifs. Lasker-Schüler was very free with regard to the external rules of poetic form, however her works thereby achieve a greater inner concentration. She was also not averse to linguistic neologisms.
A good example of her poetic art is "Ein alter Tibetteppich" ("An old Tibetan rug"), a poem which was reprinted many times after its first publication in Sturm, the first of these being in Fackel.
Another translation of the Tibetan Carpet:
An Old Tibetan Carpet
included a translation of an extract from Lasker-Schüler's work in his long poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
, 1926. (Lines 401-410.)
7, Berlin-Schöneberg
, where she lived from 1924 to 1933. Part of this street was renamed Else-Lasker-Schüler-Straße in 1996. In Elberfeld in Wuppertal there is now a school named after her (The "School without Racism"), and a memorial stele
was erected on Herzogstrasse, Wuppertal.
In Jerusalem, there is a small street named for Else Lasker-Schuler in the neighborhood of Nayot - Rehov Else. Perched on a ridge in the Jerusalem Forest, very close to the Kennedy Memorial (Yad Kennedy
), is a sculpture in her honor resembling a slender tree trunk with wings.
In 2007, her final days in Jerusalem were commemorated in the BBC radio play MY BLUE PIANO by the Scottish playwright Marty Ross (Radio 4 2007) which combined the facts of her dying days with the fantasies of her inner life.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and playwright famous for her bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
lifestyle in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement. Lasker-Schüler fled Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and lived out the rest of her life in Jerusalem.
Biography
Schüler was born in ElberfeldElberfeld
Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.-History:The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161...
, now a district of Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
. Her mother, Jeannette Schüler (née Kissing) was a central figure in her poetry, and the main character of her play Die Wupper was inspired by her father, Aaron Schüler, a Jewish banker.
In 1894, Else married the physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and occasional chess player, Jonathan Berthold Lasker
Berthold Lasker
Berthold Lasker was a German chess master.Born Jonathan Berthold Lasker, he was married to the poet and playwright Else Lasker-Schüler and was an elder brother of Emanuel Lasker....
(the older brother of Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
, a World Chess Champion
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
) and moved with him to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where she trained as an artist. On August 24, 1899 her son Paul was born and her first poems were published. She published her first full volume of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, Styx, three years later, in 1902. On April 11, 1903, she and Berthold Lasker divorced and on November 30, she married Georg Lewin. His pseudonym, Herwarth Walden
Herwarth Walden
Herwarth Walden was a German Expressionist artist and art expert in many disciplines...
, was her invention.
Lasker-Schüler's first prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
work, Das Peter-Hille-Buch, was published in 1906, after the death of Hille, one of her closest friends. In 1907, she published the prose collection Die Nächte der Tino von Bagdad, followed by the play "Die Wupper" in 1909, which was not performed until later. A volume of poetry called the Meine Wunder, published in 1911, established Lasker-Schüler as the leading female representative of German expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
.
After separating from Herwarth Walden in 1910 and divorcing him in 1912, she found herself penniless and dependent on the financial support of her friends, in particular Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
. That year, she met Gottfried Benn
Gottfried Benn
Gottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist, and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution...
. An intense friendship developed between them which found its literary outlet in a large number of love poems dedicated to him. The death of her son in 1927, however, sent her into a deep depression.
Despite winning the Kleist Prize in 1932, as a Jew she was physically harassed and threatened by the Nazis. She emigrated to Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
but there, too, she could not work. She traveled to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
in 1934 and finally settled in Jerusalem in 1937. In 1938 she was stripped of her German citizenship and the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
prevented any return to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
In 1944 Lasker-Schüler's health deteriorated. She suffered a heart attack on January 16, and died in Jerusalem on January 22, 1945. She was buried on the Mount of Olives
Mount of Olives
The Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...
.
Literary career
Lasker-Schüler left behind several volumes of poetry and three plays, as well as many short stories, essays and letters. During her lifetime, her poems were published in various magazines, among them the journal Der Sturm edited by her second husband, and Karl Kraus' Fackel. She also published many anthologies of poetry, some of which she illustrated herself. Examples are:- Styx (first published volume of poetry, 1902)
- Der siebente Tag (second volume of poetry, 1905)
- Meine Wunder (first edition, 1911)
- Gesammelte Gedichte (1917)
- Mein blaues Klavier (1943)
Lasker-Schüler wrote her first and most important play, Die Wupper, in 1908. It was published in 1909 and the first performance took place on April 27, 1919 at the Deutsche Theater in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
A large part of her work is composed of love poetry, but there are also deeply religious poems and prayers. Transitions between the two are often quite fluid. Her later work is particularly rich in biblical and oriental motifs. Lasker-Schüler was very free with regard to the external rules of poetic form, however her works thereby achieve a greater inner concentration. She was also not averse to linguistic neologisms.
A good example of her poetic art is "Ein alter Tibetteppich" ("An old Tibetan rug"), a poem which was reprinted many times after its first publication in Sturm, the first of these being in Fackel.
| "Ein alter Tibetteppich" | "An old Tibetan rug" |
|---|---|
| Deine Seele, die die meine liebet, | Your soul, which loveth mine, |
| Ist verwirkt mit ihr im Teppichtibet. | Is woven with it into a rug-Tibet. |
| Strahl in Strahl, verliebte Farben, | Strand by strand, enamoured colours, |
| Sterne, die sich himmellang umwarben. | Stars that courted each other across the length of heavens. |
| Unsere Füße ruhen auf der Kostbarkeit, | Our feet rest on the treasure |
| Maschentausendabertausendweit. | Stitches-thousands-and-thousands-across. |
| Süßer Lamasohn auf Moschuspflanzenthron, | Sweet lama-son on your musk-plant-throne |
| Wie lange küßt dein Mund den meinen wohl | How long has your mouth been kissing mine, |
| Und Wang die Wange buntgeknüpfte Zeiten schon? | And cheek to cheek colorfully woven times? |
Another translation of the Tibetan Carpet:
An Old Tibetan Carpet
Influences
The 20th century Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
included a translation of an extract from Lasker-Schüler's work in his long poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is a long poem by Hugh MacDiarmid written in Scots and published in 1926. It is composed as a form of monologue with influences from stream of consciousness genres of writing...
, 1926. (Lines 401-410.)
Commemoration
There is a memorial plaque to Else Lasker-Schüler at MotzstraßeMotzstraße
Motzstraße is a street in Schöneberg, Berlin which now runs from Nollendorfplatz via Viktoria-Luise-Platz to Prager Platz. Named after Adolf von Motz a Prussian Finance Minister, it was laid out around 1870....
7, Berlin-Schöneberg
Schöneberg
Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg....
, where she lived from 1924 to 1933. Part of this street was renamed Else-Lasker-Schüler-Straße in 1996. In Elberfeld in Wuppertal there is now a school named after her (The "School without Racism"), and a memorial stele
Stele
A stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
was erected on Herzogstrasse, Wuppertal.
In Jerusalem, there is a small street named for Else Lasker-Schuler in the neighborhood of Nayot - Rehov Else. Perched on a ridge in the Jerusalem Forest, very close to the Kennedy Memorial (Yad Kennedy
Yad Kennedy
Yad Kennedy , located in the Mateh Yehuda Regional Council near Jerusalem, Israel, is a memorial to John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, who was assassinated in 1963....
), is a sculpture in her honor resembling a slender tree trunk with wings.
In 2007, her final days in Jerusalem were commemorated in the BBC radio play MY BLUE PIANO by the Scottish playwright Marty Ross (Radio 4 2007) which combined the facts of her dying days with the fantasies of her inner life.
Film
- Ich räume auf ("I put things straight") Germany 1979, German actress Gisela SteinGisela Stein-Biography:Stein was born in Swinemünde and educated at the Wiesbaden actors school. She began her stage career in Koblenz, Krefeld-Mönchengladbach and Essen with Erwin Piscator. In 1960 Stein moved to Berlin, where she worked for the next 19 years. Stein appeared also at the Schauspielhaus...
plays the part of Else Lasker-Schüler fighting against her editors. Production: WDR television, director: Georg Brintrup
Further reading
- Avidov LipskerAvidov LipskerAvidov Lipsker is a professor of Hebrew Literature at Bar Ilan University in Israel.- Biography:Avidov Lipsker was born in Haifa in 1949. His fields of study are the Hebrew Literature of the Third and Fourth Immigration , as well as ancient and modern Hebrew prose...
, Red Poem\ Blue Poem: Seven Essays on Uri Zvi Grinberg and Two Essays on Else Lasker-Schüler, Bar Ilan University Press, Ramat-Gan 2010. - Feldman, D. Shlesinger, M. Shedletzky, I. (2010). Five Hebrew Translations of Else Lasker-Schüler's Poem "An mein Kind". Nashim. Number 19: 176-198.