DIE WINTERREISE: DER LINDENBAUM

What, then, is a folk song, ein Volkslied? (And what, then, is folk?)
Well, there are two types of folk songs: the ones whose author is
unknown and the ones whose author is known. Both types have been proven
extremely popular in the so-called "folk", the ordinary country people,
peasants, shepherds, grandmothers, hangmen and so on. The anonymous
songs have been altered a lot before one day a learned guy wanted to
write them down. (And the learned guys, like Herder, Goethe, Brentano
and von Arnim, deliberately altered the simple folk songs when they
thought them too simple - or too indecent.)

"Der Lindenbaum" is a folk song which belongs to the second class of
folk songs: songs we know the authors of (sometimes even the composers)
but who proved so catchy and moving that they became popular with, well,
the ordinary people.

Everyone in Germany has come across "Am Brunnen vor dem Tore" once in his
or her life.  It is one of the most popular German folk songs, sung in a
tune that is a little bit simpler than the Schubert melody (well, not
everyone is a Prey or Fischer-Dieskau, not even a Bocelli).  Most people
would be highly astonished should they learn that there is an author to
this poem.  The romantic idea still survives that the "folk" wrote those
songs, that they stem from the folk's dreamworld and its subconsious - like
the fairy tales.  Well, today we know that the Grimms not only collected
but also rewrote the fairy tales.  There goes another childhood myth...
But let us now talk about "Der Lindenbaum".

In the previous essays on Mueller's Winterreise I already talked about the
stanzas chosen by Mueller and we saw that Mueller, an extremely well-read
guy, deliberately chose the stanzas made popular by Brentano and von Arnim
in their folk song anthology "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (BTW the folk songs
in this collection are more original creations by the two poets than
real documents).  "Der Lindenbaum" is another example of this deliberate
artistic method:  it presents the four-line-stanza (or, if you want so, the
eight-line-stanza) we already know from "Gute Nacht", the first song of the
cycle.  So, if you want more information on this stanza, please look it up
in my essay on "Gute Nacht".

I treat the stanzas in "Der Lindenbaum" as eight-line-stanzas.  I think it
simply makes more sense but it's not a dogma.

Before we begin with the word-for-word-analysis please note the similarity
of the "Lindenbaum" setting with the setting of Grimm's "The Frog Prince":
the well and the wood respectively the linden tree.  These are strong
maternal symbols of shelter.  Read the rest in the books by our friends,
the Freudians.

Here is the first stanza of "Der Lindenbaum":

   Am Brunnen vor dem Tore
   Da steht ein Lindenbaum;
   Ich traumt in seinem Schatten
   So manchen sussen Traum.
   Ich schnitt in seine Rinde
   So manches liebe Wort;
   Es zog in Freud und Leide
   Zu ihm mich immer fort.

(By the well before the gate there stands a linden tree; I dreamed in
its shadow some sweet dreams. I carved in its bark some words of love;
in joy and sorrow I was ever drawn to it.)

We understand Heine's envy:  these are beautifully simple lines, emotional
but not sentimental, using no metaphors but moving and impressive images.

Someone (we know it is our wanderer, the poor heartbroken chap) remembers
a linden tree.  The whole stanza is full of beauty but it is a beauty
remembered.  We think we can see the very place in our minds:  the big,
large, sheltering linden tree, the well, ah, we hear the water.  What a
nice sound!  It is a quiet place now but it is not always since it is a
popular place, too.  The city gate is near, now and then (maybe it is
afternoon) people come to fetch some water, to have a little conversation.
But we just sit and relax.  Now look, there is a young chap, ah, it is
the guy who is so in love with whatshername.  He carves her name into
the linden tree's bark as so many guys have done before him.  There are
numerous hearts, slowly moving upwards as the giant tree still grows.  And
now our friend takes a nap in the tree's shadow.  We can see that he is
dreaming a jolly good dream, he is smiling.  It is May, life is wonderful.
And this young man not only has a sweetheart but also a place where he can
go and a soul friend.  Who is his soul friend, his confidant? It is the
linden tree.  Yes, nature is his friend.  This place, full of memories,
full of dreams, full of peace draws him to it.  "It" draws him as the text
literally says.  - Cut.  Winter.  A broken heart.  A lost hope.  And the
linden tree, the soul friend:  memory.  Now a leafless guardian before the
city gate where SHE lives, the faithless one.  We have to pass this
guardian in the middle of the night.

The second stanza:

   Ich musst auch heute wandern
   Vorbei in tiefer Nacht,
   Da hab ich noch im Dunkel
   Die Augen zugemacht.
   Und seine Zweige rauschten,
   Als riefen sie mir zu:
   Komm her zu mir, Geselle,
   Hier findst du deine Ruh!

(Today, too, I had to wander past in the dead of night; then I closed
my eyes even in the darkness.  And its branches rustled as if they were
calling to me:  Come over to me, chap, here you will find your rest!)

It was Thomas Mann in his magnificent novel "The Magic Mountain" who
explained in a wonderful passage of the wonderful chapter "Fuelle des
Wohllauts" (Richness of melodious sound - read it, read it, read it) that
the topic of "Der Lindenbaum" is death, nothing else.  And right he is.
What kind of rest is the linden tree talking about, now in the dead of
winter and the dead of night? It is definitely not the sweetheart, this
would be too cynic (and have you ever met a cynical tree?) and far-fetched.

The wanderer closes his eyes as he wanders past the tree, a forced rambler
not a voluntary one ("Ich MUSST auch heute wandern" - I had to...).  The
wanderer shuts himself to the place where he was so happy, to the tree he
saw as a soul friend.  But still nature is sympathetic but now it is a
sinister and ghastly sympathy:  it is a call to eternal rest, to rest
forever.  The depressed soul of the wanderer is mirrowed in nature.  It is
striking that the wanderer does not yield to this call.  He is not like the
miller in "Die schoene Muellerin" who obviously commits suicide or gives in
to death by broken heart.  The wanderer wants to live on, he wants to
suffer.  (Well, this is now - "Das Wirtshaus" is yet to come.)

Stanza three:

   Die kalten Winde bliesen
   Mir grad ins Angesicht,
   Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe,
   Ich wendete mich nicht.
   Nun bin ich manche Stunde
   Entfernt von jenem Ort
   Und immer hor ichs rauschen:
   Du fandest Ruhe dort!

(The cold winds blew straight into my face, the hat flew from my head, I
did not turn.  Now I am some hours away from that place and still I hear
the rustling:  You would find rest there!)

Nature does everything to literally turn the wanderer:  cold winds straight
in the face, the hat blown away.  But no, he is on his way.  It is highly
symbolic that the hat, the shelter, is blown away.  The wanderer now is
without protection, given over to the elements (and is so since Lied No.
3 since "Der Lindenbaum" is memory and the wanderer has already gone out
of the city gates, past the linden tree).

But even some hours away from the place of his happiness (BTW, "manch eine
Stunde" is NOT "many an hour" as many a translator says, it is "some hour"
and nothing else) the wanderer still hears the tree's call.  Now, is the
promised rest really death? I think so, others do not.  In any case there
is no return possible.  The bride is given to someone else, the words in
the bark are only memory now, the dream gone.  But maybe the tree (like
the brook in "Die schoene Muellerin") wants to call the wanderer back into
life, to a second (and third and fourth...) possible happiness? Maybe; this
is a wonderful thought.  But our stubborn friend does not turn.  This could
be the motto of the whole cycle, of the whole depression-loving attitude of
the guy:  "Ich wendete mich nicht."

Have a Schubert kind of day,
Robert Peters
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