Talk:Heidenröslein

Untitled
It is believed that breaking the rose is a metaphor for a physical / sexual violation, and that the poem is a story about rape.

Notability
I am sure that this poem is notable - it is one of the best-known poems by Goethe, in particular in song form (Schubert). Sources should be added, however (there must be lots of them).

I am removing the "importance" tag. Sorted as part of the Notability wikiproject. --B. Wolterding 16:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

NOT "Heidenröslein" but Heideröslein!
The poem is not called "Heidenröslein" (from "Heiden" = "pagans") but "Heideröslein" (from "Heide" = "heath"), like the further text displays.--Slow Phil (talk) 16:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not a German speaker, but I find it puzzling that Heidenröslein gets many more Google hits than Heideröslein, even when the search is restricted to sites like Amazon.com ... you'd expect CD's and the like to have the right title for the poem! Most of the hits for "Heideröslein" are German sites. Most of the hits for Heidenröslein restricted to sites in Germany seem to talk about the Schubert lied. I found this archived newsgroup message discussing the word.


 * You're probably right here ... and I won't kick up a fuss if you just move the page. But I wonder why "Heidenröslein" seems to be so common, even in German sites? Graham 87 01:44, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think so... Heide is a homonym meaning both heath and pagan (the noun). Heiden, then, means both heaths and pagans. Therefore, "Heidenröslein is technically incorrect for either "little pagan rose" or "little heath rose". However, my guess is that since Heide already ends in 'e', and since the rules for compounding words in German is a little fuzzy to me, adding an 'n' to clarify that the heath is an adjective seems logical, if not exactly correct. Besides, it's an old-ish poem, so the rules may have been a bit more fluid then. So, I think Heidenröslein is the correct title, if only because that's how it's always been. 223ankher (talk) 02:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The German article is named "Heideröslein" which pretty much seals the case. Otherwise I'd argue in favor of naming the article by a translation - the articles in French and Italian do so (Petite rose = Little rose) / (Rosellina della landa - Little rose on the heath).

The more important thing: give an interpretation. The word "brechen" (literally "break") was a common idiom for violation at the time of writing. The text went quite popular due to the double interpretation - it could simply mean "to break her heart" as otherwise it would mean to take her forcibly. Guidod (talk) 16:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I am a German speaker (although only up to the age of 10, so fallible on matters of advanced grammar!), and grew up singing this song. At the time I thought of it purely as about a flower, but it seems obvious from the text (the rose defended herself with her thorn, but nevertheless had to suffer the violence) that rape is suggested. As the Heide/Heiden distinction goes, both seem correct to me. "Der Heide" (masculine) is "the heathen" and "Die Heide" (feminine) is "the heath" in the nominative case (when used as the subject of a sentence. When used as the object of a preposition, these nouns are declined differently, "Ich trete auf den Heiden" ("I step on the heathen") vs.  "Ich trete auf die Heide" ("I step on the heath") vs. "Roeslein auf der Heide" ("little rose on the heath")....heathen seems to get that "n" more often than heath does, but I called the song "Heidenroeslein" as a kid myself.

The first sentence of the German entry reads "Das „Heidenröslein“ (Originaltitel) oder „Heideröslein“ ist eines der bekanntesten und volkstümlichsten Gedichte von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe." or "The „Heidenröslein“ (original title) or „Heideröslein“ is one of the best known and most customary poems of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Note that the German entry has a longer section on interpretation that makes non-rape (although rape, "Vergewaltigung" is mentioned) readings seem quite plausible - including the (true) comment that "Musst es eben leiden" is ambiguous and can be read as either "must nevertheless suffer it" and "must nevertheless passionately love it". jens (talk) 18:58, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

The oldest editions all use Heidenröslein. The German article gives no source but claims the "n" is a fugenelement, or epenthetic, that it's a sound many speakers will unconsciously create when pronouncing the word, and that Goethe just decided to represent the sound. This article says it's an archaic form and may intentionally have been chosen to sound old-fashioned due to the rural setting.

That source also discusses the sexual assault interpretation. I made a comment above in response to the unsigned and unsourced post making this claim, but someone unfortunately reverted my comment. Someone has already added this claim to the main article without providing a source, and that's a major issue. I can't even find a serious source making the affirmative claim, only an article about an activist group vandalizing a statue of Goethe in response to the interpretation of the poem as rape apology. The claim should either be removed, or moved to a separate section discussing interpretation. (The German page originally had this subsection but removed it for lack of sources)

Less pressing issues: The German article has a section explaining that the poem is not a 100% original creation, but has many predecessors, including a similar poem by Goethe's close friend and mentor Johann Gottfried Von Herder. The implication is not plagiarism, but that both men were inspired by a much older folk song and also had the type of relationship where such copying was normal and expected. This would be good to add.

We currently also have the poem attributed to the Sesenheimer Lieder, from the period of Goethe's romance with Friederike Brion, but we provide no source. The article from "Figures of Speech" alleges that this dating is incorrect, as does the German article on the Sesenheimer Lieder, but the only [|source] that is not a dead link is rather old, and I can't find information on the author.

It claims that there is no evidence that this poem was written at that time, and also that there has been confusion over those manuscripts that were recovered from Brion's family years later because she was later courted by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. Allegedly Lenz's writing appears on some manuscripts, so he might have been editing Goethe's or got works he kept imitations of Goethe's style alongside the originals, where they letter got mistaken for Goethe's work. Either way, there is supposedly no Heidenröslein among those manuscripts that were discovered. Even if we don't comment on this controversy, we should cite a source saying that it is commonly attributed to the Sesenheimer Lieder and not just state it unsourced.(UTC)

Chilltherevolutionist (talk) 06:38, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

the four columns
The first one is the original German, but what are the three English ones? The official, the unofficial and the literally-translated? CALDlykLIJ (talk) 12:09, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The 4th column is a poetic translation, attributed to Bowring (1853). The 3rd column was added on 9 December 2009, without attribution, the editor's own work, I presume. The second column was added on 22 April 2009, along with the German text. Again, the translation is presumably the editor's. Clearly, both are not needed. Which one should stay? I think the 3rd column does the job of a literal translation better than the 2nd. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:02, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay. I was asking because the columns weren't clearly labelled.CALDlykLIJ (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)