Professor David Peimer
Henrich Heine: ‘One of the Most Remarkable Men and Poets of Our Age’- George Eliot

Professor David Peimer - Henrich Heine: ‘One of the Most Remarkable Men and Poets of Our Age’- George Eliot

- So today, I’m going to be looking at this, for me, a remarkable writer, poet, I think in particular, a mind of his time, Heinrich Heine. I’m sure many people know his poetry and his contribution to not only German literature, but European and world literature, quite an extraordinary character, and extraordinary poetry, and what he really innovated and led to. And I want to draw out a couple of key things, which is, I think how he relates to us today so much, given our times that we all living through, and the different tensions that Heine was caught in. And of course, he’s writing poetry, he is writing literature, articles, newspaper articles, many other things. But it’s the attitude to the writing, it’s the actual writing itself, and the tensions of the society in Germany that he’s caught up in at that time. And I think they do echo down the ages to us today. So I think what, just a couple of main points at the beginning would be, he very different to the romantics of Schiller and to a degree Goethe. Heine is ironic. I’ll never forget reading many years ago, what Paul Simon said about his voice compared to Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon said the reason they could never really sing together, or perform, was because he had a, should we call it, a pure voice or a more romantic voice, Paul Simon. Whereas Dylan has the irony built into the voice. There’s always a double meaning with Dylan.

There’s a sense of, it could mean this, it could mean that. There’s a sense of a double understanding, an ironic detachment and, you know, and emotional engagement. Whereas Paul Simon, we feel he’s directly emotionally engaged. This is, of course a huge generalisation, but it’s a fascinating insight for me that Paul Simon gave about himself and his voice, compared to Dylan’s voice. And it’s not that one is better or worse, there’s no, that’s not the issue at all. It’s just a difference to be aware of. And I think with Heine, in the actual writing, is first of all that ironic voice. He is utterly aware of how irony works and how, giving double meanings, and having a certain malice and a wit inside it, having a certain double meaning, if you like, instead of being caught on the horns of the dilemmas. So, he is very much for me, post-romantic in German literature of the times. And of course we, that these are his, his dates 1797 to 1856. So, you know, he’s living in this period after the French Revolution. This time he’s living in the romantics, but he is, I mean, in the jargon might be called post-romantic, or he’s certainly not romantic. And for me, he’s modern because of that ironic, that ability to not just be caught up in a romantic ideal, but to be ironic, to see it, but also subvert it, see and subvert all the time he’s playing with. I think also, that’s in terms of the language.

And for me, his position in German poetry and European poetry world. I think as an individual, he’s also, he’s coming after one of the most obviously globally important events, the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic era. So he’s born into a world which has changed forever by the French Revolution, the end of the divine right of kings. You know, the pulling together of religion state, king, and the splitting of those functions, and the rise of the Enlightenment, where the dream was reason over, shall we call it superstition, some call it faith, some call it superstition, some call it beliefs. Not right or wrong, but that was the aim of the Enlightenment, was to have the triumph of reason. And he is very sceptical of it all because he’s ironic, because he’s post-romantic. He’s sceptical, I don’t think cynical, but I think he’s sceptical and ironic all the time. And that makes him, he can’t, his cousin was Karl Marx and they were very good friends for quite a while.

But I think Marx loved his poetry and, liked him much more than vice versa. You know, I didn’t think Heine had much time for, you know, some of the ideas of Marx, just as one example that he’s not caught up in a kind of utopian idealism. And I think that’s the crucial distinction with Heine and, it’s what makes his poetry so modern for me. And I’m going to spend today just talking a little bit about what I’m going to call the “horns of the dilemma” that this guy is living in, in himself and these times. And then we’ll look at the actual poetry, and the actual literature that he wrote, some really good examples. So he grows up, you know, in, if we like, in the footsteps of the French Revolution and crucially, the Napoleonic period after that, which has led to the emancipation of Jewish people and others in various parts of Europe, that of course Napoleon has conquered. He grew up in Düsseldorf, and in particular in the Rhine area, is where the Napoleonic emancipation edicts had taken effect. And that’s really important. He lives half his life there in this part of, let’s call it, one of the principalities of Germany. And the other half, he lives in Paris, in France. So he, for me, on the horns of the dilemma, what is the dilemma?

He’s caught between the end of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic emancipation. But Napoleon has conquered these principalities of Germany. So that’s a dilemma because he wants the emancipation, but it also means living, you know, at least partly under the conquest. He’s courts in the horns of the dilemma of Jewish identity, which is the crucial thing in Heine. He’s born Jewish, he attends Jewish schools early on, a very educated, very intelligent, ambitious mother, and something of a more ambivalent role, which we can understand of his father. And he’s funded all his life by his very rich uncle, who’s a millionaire, Solomon Heine. So the horns of the dilemma are, the ghetto is history. The, the, lack of emancipation, the lack of opportunity to go to university, to study, to learn, to achieve all sorts of things within the world of culture, science, arts, business, whatever, have been opened up by the Napoleonic reforms, to a degree, certainly larger than before. But at the same, so that on the one hand, is step out of not only the physical in certain instances, but the psychological ghetto. And what is happening, he’s on the horns of the dilemma. He wants to be part of modernity, but his tradition is something else. So, in terms of Jewish identity, assimilation, you know, the old debates that we’ve gone through many, many times, others do better than me, Trudy and others. Of assimilate, or don’t assimilate, or mixtures between the two.

Living on the horns of this dilemma is Heine, and that is captured absolutely in his writing. He’s also in the horns of the dilemma of Germany. He has a passionate love for Germany, for the history, the traditions, the culture, the language. He wants to modernise the language, he wants to bring it out, you know, from the past. He has a belief, some say partly naive or not, the in the unification to come of Germany. There is a passionate love of the culture he’s emerging from, but he’s under no illusion, is he going to be seen in the old classic assimilationist debates as Jewish, German, a German Jew, and et cetera. He understands that together with the rise, the conquest by Napoleon, has come the rise of German nationalism. Not only the aspiration of unification, but nationalism. And he sees. He’s so early on, far more early on than I think most other writers, the potential dangers of that one word, nationalism. And we, I don’t have to go into hard echoes for us today, but nationalism can become too passionate, too extreme, and it can flip against the very ideals that gave birth to it.

It devours its children, in one of the project phrases. So he is caught on the horns of that dilemma, to be German or not. Then he goes, because the Germany of the times, under Metenik primarily, is banning his work, is censoring a lot of his work, and fellow young writers of his times. So, on the one hand, there’s the passionate love for the country, the culture, the history, and the hope, given certain aspects of Enlightenment. But on the other hand, being banned, you know, free open ideas, debate, discussion, et cetera. Censored, banned, stopped. So it is a double attitude to everything. And he is aware of it. And I think that is such a modern understanding of the world, you know, that you’re all caught on different dilemma, on different horns. He’s so aware of the Napoleonic Empire, as I said, he’s so aware of the German history and politics, and he’s so engaged with it in his life, and in his poetry. He’s not scared to bring these dilemmas of politics into, what for me, is very personal and powerful poetry. The apparent simplicity of the language is also what is so modern. He moves away from the very heightened poetry of the romantics, you know, of Schiller and the others, to a much more grounded, ironic, down to earth kind of modern language that we can relate to, perhaps that we are much more aware of in poetry and literature today. Certainly these are all the dilemmas this guys caught up in. He is double, triple alienated. His double, triple dilemmas.

And his way to deal with it, is what Nietzsche called, that Nietzsche said that he had a divine malice, which is a beautiful phrase I think, of Mr. Nietzsche. He has a divine malice in his being, and a divine malice in the writing, is his way of coping with all these contradictions. He converts to Christianity quite early on, because, at the time, this is after the reaction to the end of the Napoleonic period, that the only way you could get up, you could get, he basically wanted university job. And the only way you could get a university job, and many other jobs in government, and other things in these German principalities, was to convert and become Christian. So he becomes Christian and think, great, this is my passport, this is my ticket, what he called, you know, that’s the passport into European culture is to convert, so do it. What the hell? But pretty soon after he does it, he writes a letter to a very good friend of his in 1822. So he is very young, he’s 25. And he said, yes, I’ve got my, this is, I’m quoting him here, “I got my ticket of admission into European culture, thanks to my conversion. But, I just converted to Christianity and already they’re angry at me for being a Jew who’s converted. Now I’m hated by both Christians and Jews. I’m actually quite sorry that I converted to Christianity and I have not felt better since, quite the opposite, actually.”

This is a letter to a very good friend of his, Moses. So he is pretty soon, and this is written a few months after he’s already converted in order to get the job offer in the university. He writes that he’s still not accepted. So he is super aware, he’s under no illusions. And I guess this is the other thing I love about his writing, there is no illusions with Heine. There’s no fanciful, over romantic or over idealistic. He sees the truth inside nationalism, inside romantic passion, inside love, inside the Germany that he’s living in, and possible Germany to come. He foresees extraordinarily, what is to come when passion runs amok, when nationalist passion goes to the extreme, he’s aware. So together with this, and yet he’s living in a time of the Enlightenment, the battle between the Enlightenment and the feudal past, if you like. And certain aspects of religious emancipation, liberal ideas, an openness of society that Europe is aspiring towards, at least. And there’s one of the phrases that he uses in one of the letters about identity and German jury, “Be a man abroad and a Jewish man in your tent.” So is, but is he’s thinking, well, is this possible? How do you do it? I have to convert so I get my job that I want, that I can work where I want, but then I’m still not recognised, I’m still, you know, demeaned. So he goes, he attended a Jewish school for a while. He then went to some Catholic schools to, you know, because his mother was very aware of how, if you’re going to want to get ahead in Germany, got to do it. He went at university, he studied law, history, literature.

I guess the real thing is that, in 1831, so this is, he’s what, he’s 34 at this time, six years after he’s been baptised into Christianity and he’s got his job that he wants, he’d had enough of constant of, and mostly pushed by Metenik, and some of the others, of German censorship of his work, and fellow writers who are trying to push this approach to the Enlightenment and emancipate ideals. So he moves to Paris in 1831, 6 years after his baptism, six years after the big change in his life. To hell with this, it’s enough. Jewish, German, Christian, the horns of the dilemma, constantly, the shadow of every step. He goes off to Paris. And two years later in 1833, all his works were confiscated by most of the, the principalities or states of the German confederation. So he is very young, he’s in his thirties, so much of his writing confiscated or banned at minimum, and it’s not allowed at all. And, because this happens, and all of this history that I’m showing of his own life, it mirrors so much of what he sees to come. And then he spent the rest of his life, the remaining years, about 20 something years, in exile in Paris. And there, he discovers that he’s quite a celebrity. And he mingles with Alexandre Dumas, Chopin, and many, many other kind of literati, and others of the times in Paris. But, although he likes it, and feels good. He has this nostalgic, but realistic harking back to the German culture, and to Germany. But he’s aware, no way back, can’t publish.

So, this whole picture, and just one other point actually, is that Karl Marx’s father and his father were, if you like, emancipated because they were the, what were called Jews of the Rhineland, which is one of the main areas that Napoleonic conquests had emancipated for jury. So, and, but when it was annexed to Prussia in 1815, emancipated Jews were then given the choice, convert to Christianity and keep their jobs or their profession, or their faith, or keep their faith, keep their religion, and lose their jobs, their profession and positions in German society. So what happens to the backlash of this choice? This is Karl Marx’s father, it’s Heine’s father, and many others. What happens to the sons and daughters of this generation? The backlash of the inverted choice, we can imagine, if for a moment, is quite profound. ‘Cause hang on, what choice do I have? Am I emancipated? Am I not? Am I seen as German and Jewish, or am I not Jewish and German? Can I get out of the ghetto physically, and the ghetto of the mind, historically, or not? Where can I position, where do I belong? What do I belong to? So what is so important, and together with this, this banning, if you like, which is a backlash against enlightenment, backlash against Napoleonic reforms, is of course the rise of German nationalism from the early 19th century, which is going to take effect much later in the 1870s with Bismarck.

And together with the rise of nationalism, as I’m sure everybody knows better than I do, comes the rise of antisemitism always. as nationalism rears its head, so antisemitism, you know, comes along in, is the shadow that comes with it. So Heine sees, and he is living through this tumultuous period, and almost foresees, imagines what happens if this becomes extreme? What happens if it goes further? Where is it going to? What will happen? And I can understand so much the link between this guy and Kafka later, much later, absolutely sure Kafka read him. 'Cause obviously they’re both, German was their first language. And the aphorisms, the wittiness, the irony, the divine malice that I see in the humour in Kafka, and in Heine, for me, there’s such a link. And for me, they’re both prophets of their time in a way. But realistic ones, not naive. So, because he’s also part of thinking, he joins a group, which I know Trudy spoke about the other day, where trying to so-called, improve Jewish people. What does that mean? How that can fit into this German society better, better manners, be more polite, how to improve, how to basically play the game of the culture which they’re living in, so they can succeed. But, they still have to convert, or don’t they? How much of their past, how much of their clothing, their religion, their faith, all sorts of things, are going to be allowed or not.

The horns of the dilemma, again and again. And this is what he’s living, and this young Heine is not scared to write about. He’s not scared to live. And he joins political, young political societies. They do it, they write about it. They’re, they’re banned, they’re censored. You know, all these things are happening to these guys. I think it’s the promise, the promise deferred, or the promise taken away. And for their, but we can imagine the parent generation and then the sons and daughters, Heine and Marx even, and others, their generation. Hang on, we are promised, we’re offered, we can, it’s just within our grasp, but then…no it ain’t. So, he went to the universities of Bonn, Göttingen, forgive my pronunciation, Berlin, and he’s doing all of this at this time. This is a picture of him at slightly older age here, you can see, he’s become a Parisian intellectual and artist. He’s become, you know, he’s going salons and poetry readings and you know, all sorts of other things. Look at this guy. This is the young one. Yeah. Again, this is, you know, from a time when he’s in Paris, and we can see he’s taken on, from the hair to the bit of the beard, you know, everything is the, is that image, because of course he enjoys the celebrity. A little bit of a celebrity is in small circles in Paris. It’s fun. So I think these two images capture, for me, part of what he is living through in himself. Okay. These are some phrases about him and by him. Nietzsche: “He possessed that divine malice, without which perfection, for me, is unimaginable.” And it’s a phrase that I’ve never forgotten of Nietzsche about Heine.

“He possessed that divine malice.” It’s an extraordinary phrase. You know, we can think of so many comedians of today, you know, maybe not quite divine, but for me is divine, but in a totally different way. And many others. “Without which perfection, for me, is unimaginable.” Nietzsche certainly had a way with words and able to write. We all know the great phrase of Heine, but what’s extraordinary is that he writes it nearly a century before it happens, “Where they have burned books, they will end up burning human beings.” Another quote, and I’m going to come to that, back to that in a moment. This is, this is an aphorism. And what I’m interested in is, is not only the thought in the aphorism, but the way of using words. “Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.” That is divine malice in action. It’s a wit, it’s a quip. It’s an aphorism, quick. It’s like some of Churchill’s best lines and many others. “There are more fools in the world than there are people.” That’s one of my favourites. “Experience is a good school, but the fees are high.” You have to feel that divine balance and you have to relish and love it, the wit and the humour. And it’s, for me, it’s coming from what I’m calling the horns of the dilemma. What I’m saying is, all these tensions that he’s caught, and these conflicts that he knows and feels that are described; Germany, nationalism, Jewishness, et cetera, Napoleonic, poster Napoleonic, all those periods.

“In the dark ages, people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black knight a blind man is a best guide, When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides.” Divine malice yet again. This is the way of, it’s a way of putting language together to make an idea, to make an argument. It’s brilliant, it’s witty, it’s malicious, but in such a charmingly, witty, divine way, you know? And it’s the foundation of so much ironic humour, of what I call the ironic voice in Heine, and others. The other thing is that it’s, it’s self-aware. He’s not scared. And I’m going to show some of his love poetry and the others shortly. He’s not scared to be self-aware and self-ironic. And of course we are human, “Where they burnt books, they will end up in burning human beings later.” Which actually came from a piece that he wrote, which is about the burning of the Quran in a different, I don’t want to go into the whole story, but that’s ironic in itself. But he’s aware of the meaning of that phrase. It’s not just suddenly, you know, a poetic line that comes to him. And of course we know only too well, you know, what happens, 1933 Goebbels and the burning of the books, et cetera. And I wanted to choose one or two of these slides. Over 40,000 people attended the burning of the books, the main one in Berlin with Goebbels. And of course obviously the Nazis, the Germans. These are students, look how young, these are students, university students. There’s the Nazi, you know, the storm troopers there on the left, they’re the books. They’re not yet burnt. Look at the ordinary people.

Look at the look of glee and radish, you know, these are just ordinary people caught up in it. It’s the very ordinariness in a way, caught up in this horrific moment of history, of human, of what has gone on, and what is to come. But they’re looking at the pictures, they’re looking at the books. They’re not just, you know, it’s not just like a, they’re seeing what they are doing. And then of course, this, this is a more well-known picture, the bit of the fire in the background. And here, you know, this is more of picture taken from more the Nazi angle. This is more from the student’s angle here. Interesting bit of difference for me. So this is the burning of the books, and there’s so much written about it and so much said about it. I’m not going to go on. There is, what is fantastic, there were American journalists in Berlin, and for me, the most interesting were the American journalists in Berlin at the time. Who observed, who went to the, saw it, observed it, and wrote about it for American newspapers afterwards. And there’s quite a few, but there’s some who are fantastic. So going back to Mr. Heine, is he. Let me get back, sorry, his picture. One moment. Yeah, in Paris. He’s, he writes political satire, which is published in Karl Marx’s newspaper called, , obviously an English forward.

So he writes political satire, love poetry. He writes very personal poems about his life, what I’ve described. It’s 1843, he wrote a long satire in verse, Germany, A Winter’s Tale, which is a stinging attack on reactionary Germany. The reaction against the Enlightenment, against some of the better parts of the Napoleonic reforms. A reaction, which is using or incorporating German nationalism to try and hark back to something of feudal philosophy of the rule, of the king, of hierarchy, militarism, structure. And of course, this links to the rise of militarism more and more. And authoritarianism, that’s the word I’m looking for. So he was a good, he was, you know, he was a cousin of Marx. They got on fairly well, but I think Marx liked him much more than vice versa, but they got on pretty well. But Heine was never caught up with the naive, you know, whatever ideal thoughts of Marx’s revolution at all. His early years in Paris, called him his happiest, but it, but he never forgot he was an outcast from Germany. An exile, who would every now and then, not nostalgic, but hark back to what on earth had happened in his home country. And he became transformed in identity from being an outcast in German literature, to being a leading literary personality with many prominent people in Paris. 1841, he marries a lady he meets, who doesn’t have any education, or very little bit of school, works in a shop. And he called her Matilda. But his critical and satirical writings are constantly being censored and ultimately banned by German, by the German leadership. 1835, Germany tries to enforce a total ban on all his works. He’s spied upon. Police spies are sent out to Paris to watch after him. He’s never destitute, but his uncle died in 1844, disinheriting him.

And that began a struggle for an inheritance because his uncle had been subsidising all of this at the same time. So another horn of the dilemma, financially, he’s okay, he’s got his uncle financing, you know, we can go, into that kind of internal conflict as well. And finally, it was a struggle for his inheritance against with uncle’s family and others, his own extended family, really. Finally, they settled it. And it’s interesting how settled the uncle’s family, these are his cousins, have the right of censorship over his writings. And then he can have some of the money, because they don’t want to be embarrassed in Germany. They don’t want to be harangued, harassed. They want to be just left alone and just go quietly by themselves, they don’t want to be associated with Heine. They have the right to censor his works in Germany itself. Fascinating. That’s the result of a fight against your own cousins for an inheritance of an uncle. His health is deteriorating all the time. He has venereal disease, which is attacking his nervous system, getting sicker and sicker. And in 1848, he was confined to what he called his mattress grave. He was basically bedridden, and probably syphilis or something like that, and is slowly dying. His third volume of poems, published in 1851. Romanzero, forgive my pronunciation, again, is full of lament. And, but it’s tough thoughts on the human condition. Together with everything I’ve described about his personal history on the human, he’s getting to grips with the deeper stuff. And these poems from that, this last edition, are regarded as amongst some of his finest.

After eight years of ill health and, physical torment of health, he died. And he was buried in Montmartre cemetery. His power to annoy was as great as his power to charm and move us through his poetry, I really think. It made him, of course, appear unpatriotic, subversive. The growth of antisemitism contributed of course to the arguments in the case in Germany against him, even though he had converted. The rise of popularity, what’s extraordinary is that his words, his poems, which often return into songs later, were so popular amongst German culture that later they, even the Nazis, they couldn’t stop the people singing, speaking his poems, and had to publish them, but used the word anonymous, never used the name Heine. So all of this goes together, with that. I want to just try and draw a picture of the powerful impact he has had over the century into our times. Okay, let’s look at some of the actual language, and some of the actual poetry that he’s doing. Now, what I’ve done is I’ve taken from, 'cause a lot of the poems are much longer, so I’ve just extracted bits. “I don’t believe in God above, who gets the preacher’s nod. I only trust your heart now, and have no other God. I don’t believe in devils, in hell or hell’s black art. I only trust your eyes now, and your devil’s heart.” It’s ironic malice again, how he’s turning and twisting with God and religion, and devil and the, you know, the good and evil. But what do I trust? You’ve got a devil in your heart like we all have, okay?

It’s yet so deceptively simple in the language, which I love. It’s totally different to the heightened, poetic verse of Schiller and a lot of Goethe. And for some of Goethe, and the others, it’s, it’s so modernness. It reminds me of the Dylan poem, the Dylan song. You know, only God on your side, you know? So, “I don’t believe in God above, who gets the preacher’s nod.” You can almost find a rhythm to it. You know, you can do many things with this kind of language. For me, it’s so deceptively beautiful and simple. And it gets right in, I think in such a modern way. But he is writing this, you know, this is nearly a hundred years ago. Okay, and then we go on to the next one. “Lying so sweetly in your arms prisons.” Sweetly in your arms prisons, everything has, its double, an ironic double for Heine. So full of love, lying so sweetly in your arms prisons, you mustn’t speak of Germany to me - I can’t stand it - I have my reasons. Oh, leave me in peace about Germany. Don’t plague me with endless questions. Homeland, tribe and national custom. I have my reasons - I just can’t stand it. The oak trees are green; blue are the eyes of German women. They pine in season, and sigh about faith, hope, love. But I, I just can’t stand it - I have my reasons.“ This is one of the poems I love the most. Somehow can come back to these poems again and again, because it’s so personal, and yet it’s so global, you know, it’s so individual, and yet it’s so national. But look how he’s being ironic, he’s praising Germany, but he’s subverting it at the same time. And that’s what freaked him out in the end, it’s a kind of satire. That’s of course what freaked him out, and why they industry banned and censored him. Because they’re trying to figure out, well, where does this guy stand?

He’s not just, you know, in a one dimensional German patriot. And he is not one-dimensional German critic. It’s both. You know, "I just can’t stand it, and I have my reasons.” It, it’s for me, such a modern line. We could be saying it today, couldn’t we? Leave me in peace about Germany. Leave me in peace about Brexit, about whatever, whatever. All different things, you know, going on in different parts of the world. Okay, I want to go another one. “They loved each other with love so deep. She was a tramp and he was a thief. While he was plying his naughty craft, she just lay on the bed and laughed. The days went by in pleasure and joy. At night in the sheets, she hugged her boy. When they dragged him off to jail at last, she just stood at the window and laughed. He wrote to her saying, "Oh come to me, along for you so badly, you see. I’m weeping, I’m fading fast. She shook her sweet head and laughed. At six in the morning they hung him high. At seven, they buried him under the sky. But at eight, as eight o'clock went past, she drank red wine and laughed.” So it’s, I see it as not just an attack, on naive love, but in something profound in human nature with that divine malice, again, they loved each other with a love so deep. She was a tramp, he was a thief. But when he is caught, she laughed. The days went by on pleasure and joy. He went off to jail, she stood and laughed.

Could be anybody, you know, how much do we really care? Don’t we? How much we put ourselves out there for somebody. At six in the morning they hung him high. At seven, they buried him under the sky. But as eight o'clock went past, she drank red wine and laughed. It’s such, it’s for me, it’s not just bitterness, it’s bitter sweet. And it’s ironic, because not denying love, but, it’s just trying to describe what happens, you know, in a possible love story. And the language is so non-romantic, in that way. It’s so, it’s obviously ironic, but it’s so deceptively simple. I would never say simplistic, deceptively simple, and can speak to anyone. We can understand how the German population in Hitler’s time, in any time, loved this guy’s writing. 'Cause you didn’t have to study literature at university. You didn’t have to study literature anywhere, you could get it and love it. And you could laugh and enjoy poetry, you know, as ancient as poetry can be. When it just speaks to the human heart and the human. It doesn’t require many years of, you know, sophisticated education. It’s great, for me in that way of capturing the spirit of Heine himself and such, such a modern spirit, and attitude to life. And this is one of, this is how he deals with love. “This mad carnival. This mad carnival of loving.” Is that a phrase which is completely and simplistic? Or is it actually quite a memorable phrase? “This mad carnival of loving, this wild orgy of the flesh ends at last, and we two sobered. Look at one another, yawning.”

• You have to laugh, you have to have a smile at least. Because on one hand, this mad carnival of love, this wild orgy of the flesh and, but he’s pitching at not, you know, at the moment of two in the morning or three in the morning, everybody’s drunk and dancing, whatever. You know, rock and roll. Let’s, rock on. Ends at last, we two sobered. Look at one another, yawning. It brings it so human, down to the human touch. Emptied the flaming cup that was filled with sensuous potions, foaming, almost running over. Emptied is the flaming cup. All the violins are silent. That impelled our feet to dancing to the giddy dance of passion, silent are the violins. All the lanterns now are darkened, that once poured their streaming brilliance on the masquerades and murmurs - Darkened, now are all the lanterns.“ So he’s able to reach the heights of romanticism in German, in poetry and the language. But he’s also able to then subvert, ironically undermine it. You know, we wake up yawning, had an amazing night. He’s not scared to go the whole way. He doesn’t just stick with half of love story. He goes the whole way with love story. That for me, is the ironic voice that makes him part of being so modern for me. And this, it comes from being on the horns of the dilemma. Everything I try to, pardon me, describe about his own personal trajectory in his own life. All those different tensions and fault lines that he himself in his own life was caught up in. This mad carnival, one of the great poems or one of the, you know, for me, the most powerful. I had a lovely homeland long ago. The oak tree seemed so tall there, and the violets blew so sweet.

It was a dream. It kissed me in German, spoke in German the words: I love you true! It was a dream.” What an amazing poem for me of somebody who’s living, again, nearly a hundred years ago. It could be so contemporary of anyone of us living. Are we thinking of staying in the same place? Are we going to move, another country, another land, another job, another nationality. Another take on another nationality or not. You know, where are we going to be seen as intruders? Where will be, where is assimilation effective? Not assimilate, assimilate all of it. The German Jewish and the Jewish German, all those horns, in one short poem. But not trying to give didactic academic language, but in poetry. And yet, so deceptively simple in the language. “I had a lovely homeland long ago.” And I don’t see it as naive nostalgia, I just see it as, you know, as, the folk singer Rodriguez. You know, “I had a lovely homeland long ago. The oak tree seemed so tall there. The violets blew so sweet. It was a dream.” So he remembers the beautiful smells, the colours, the light, the colour, the smells you know of, the past, of his homeland in Germany. For him, it kissed me in German. Spoke in German, you’d scarce, believe how good it sounds, the words I loved you true. It was a dream.“ Pause, it was a dream. So it it, it’s such a, but that dream is double, because on one hand it was a beautiful dream and I loved it, and I lived there and I did it, but it’s the past. It’s a dream, you know?

And it’s gone, it’s dried up, it’s finished. It’s so deceptively simple and brilliant for me, in the language and in the poetry. Go on to the next one. These are some of his aphorisms. And I see Kafka. And when I come to talk about Kafka in, I think it’s a week or two, you know, link it to this. This is, this was what Heine apparently said on his deathbed in 1856. "God will forgive me, it’s his job.” It could be Woody Allen made. It could be who knows, you know, we capture that double meaning, the double alienation of the Jewish person. The double meanings or not, but you know, believe, but don’t believe, in and out. It’s the ironic voice. You can never just be on one level, always got another level happening. Another level of thinking, which gives rise to the divine malice of wit. “The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they’d been obliged to first very in Latin.” Let’s go right down from the ancient, the Romans ancient history, you know, back to when you’re 14 at school. And this, this is what the actual quote is from the, the piece about the books. “This was but a prelude, where books are burnt, human beings will be burnt in the end.” That for me is the best translation from the German of all possible translations into English. “This was but a prelude.”

Was this just instinctive prophecy, instinctive insight that he saw, pure insight? Did he think about it hard? We don’t have a clue. Does it matter? No. The point is that he came up with it, and it’s echoed through all globally, this phrase of Hiene’s, as a warning. Pretty profound warning. “I take pride in never being rude to anyone on this earth, which contains a great number of unbearable villains, who set upon you to recount their sufferings, and even recite their poems.” This was an attack on the romantic poets, you know? And he said, I’m going to be rude to them. I’m going to, unbearable their poetry, recount their sufferings and recite their poems and, you know, unrequited love. And this one, this one dumped me. And I’m going to dump that one. And, you know, all the love stories of our lives. Not to belittle it, to undermine it, but how’s he coping with his own being dumped often? He was dumped often. And by a woman that he was in love with. And but he has to come to some understanding of it, of how to deal with being dumped in love. So it’s a way of using words together, but it’s also a way of gearing himself up, if you like, you know, to carry on. And this is as he’s getting older. “Our death is in the cool of night. Our life is in the pool of day. The darkness glows. I’m drowning.” Is when he is already sick. So sick with, venereal disease. “Day’s tired me with light. Over my head in leaves grown deep, sings a young nightingale. It only sings. I hear it in my sleep. Ah! The kettles boiling over and the little cat howls with fright.”

It’s an extraordinary combination here of ordinary language, every day living of, you know. “Our death is in the cool of night. Our life is in the pool of day.” And we’ve heard the image again and again, a million times of light and dark and you know, the metaphor, et cetera. But look how he plays with it. And he’s linking something huge life, death. But it’s in such accessible language. “The darkness glows, I’m drowning.” He hasn’t got on. Just, I’m drowning. “Days tired me with light.” I’m tired, with light even of day. I can’t carry on. But it’s one word, it’s one, it’s a couple of words. Simple, clear “over my head in leaves grown deep, sings the young nightingale.” Can still appreciate beauty. “It only sings. I hear it in my sleep.” Well it does. It’s a little young nightingale just sings, you know, it’s not great shakes, but on the other hand, it might be great shakes, everything has its double meaning. And then just a cold, simple fact of the reality, huh? The kettle’s boiling and the little cat howls with fright. Extraordinary combination of so modern. We can feel it, you know, I think, okay, I want to go on here. “Not a mass will be sung then, not a Kaddish will be said. Nothing sung and nothing spoken. On the day when I am dead. But perhaps another day, when the weather’s mild serene, my Matilda will go walking in Montmarte, with Pauline. With a wreath of Immortals. She’ll come to dress my grave. And she’ll sigh, 'Oh, poor man.’ That moist sadness in her gaze.

A shame I’m so high up, and I’ve no chair for my sweet. No stool to offer her. Ah, she trips with weary feet! Don’t my sweet, plump child, make your way back home on foot, behind the iron railings the cabs are waiting, look.” So it’s almost as if he’s dead and saying this to his wife. Again, it’s that combination of the big, big themes of human nature, life, death, grave, and his wife, imagining her coming to the grave. “But not a mass will be sung. Not a kaddish will be said.” Have they accepted me either side? Am I German? Am I Jewish? Am I Christian? Am I Catholic? Am I this, am I that? What’s going to actually happen? You know. “Nothing sung, nothing spoken on the day that I’m dead, but perhaps another day.” And that how he turns it gently. “When the weather’s mild, serene, my Matilda will go walking in Montmarte, she’ll come, she’ll dress my grave. Poor man with moist sadness, moist sadness. But I’ve, I can’t even offer her a chair. It’s so down to the tiny little details of everyday, modern life. Not a stool to offer her. She trips with weary feet, make your way back home on foot behind the iron railings.

The cabs are waiting. Look, never forget there’s a cab. So it’s, so for me, it’s such a, it’s so delicate, it’s so beautiful in such a simple way. So ridiculously modern, written so long ago, "A single fir-tree, lonely. On a northern mountain height, sleeps in white blanket, draped in snow and ice. His dreams of a palm tree, who, far in eastern lands, weeps, all alone and silent, mong the burning sands.” It’s a little dream, a little hope, a little thought. Just one image of a single fir-tree, you know, on a northern mountain height, sleeps in a white blanket of snow, just one image. The way of describing it’s so, the brevity, the conciseness, the choice of language and words, which are not over romantic. They’re quite down to earth for me, so contemporary again, you know, and the brevity of the writing, which is so contemporary, in our modern times. This is a picture which a friend drew of Heine later in his life. I wanted to have these three pictures, the one of when he is younger, the one when he’s, this sort of almost celebrity in Paris. And then a more thoughtful, almost philosophical sketch by a friend of his here. Some more of his aphorisms to show the wit. “We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.” “Mine is a most peaceable disposition. If God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six of my enemies hanging from those trees. One must it is true, forgive one’s enemies, but not before they’ve been hanged.” It’s the twist is bringing God in. And if God wants to make me happy, God has a job, it’s going to make me happy as well.

Not only there, as solace for my pain and adversity, he’s also got to make me happy. Hey God, that’s your job. It’s, you know, he will grant me the joy of seeing some of my enemies hanging in those trees, when must forgive, but not before they’ve been hang. So quite capable of the malice. Let’s think of the censorship, the bannings, all those things happening to him as a writer. Basically, can’t go back to Germany and write, it’s over. This is another aphorism here on the left. “The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle.” One has to laugh at the wit, and it’s not about agreeing or not, it’s just to play with the idea and the wit always set something up and subvert. And that’s the ironic voice in literature, which to me is the contemporary voice. Set it up and subvert. And this is one of his poems. “The red and glowing sun goes down, down into the far shuttering sea, a world of waters, silver-gray; breaks the gentle moon.” Beautiful. “And the wretched gods, high-moving in heaven, wander in anguish, drag with them their radiant sorrow. But I, a mere man. So lowly planted of death, so favoured. I’ll whine here no longer. Oh God! How deeply bitter dying is! How sweet and intimate the life of man.” It’s extraordinary here that he can talk in this semi-romantic way. The shuttering sea, the silver moon, the gentle, you know, the wretched Gods, the heaven.

One day in anguish, sorrows, radiant. And I’m just a man, but I’ll whine no longer. Okay. But how deeply bitter dying is! How sweet and intimate the life of man. Two lines. Two lines. I think he just gets it, in a way, which for me is so resonant and so evocative. So I have wanted to focus much more on, let’s get into the actual writing itself, get examples of how he’s thinking and writing. For me, capturing what I was describing earlier, the horns of all the dilemmas he was caught up in, and what he’s doing to push German poetry, German literature, European literature, in a whole new direction, away from the romantics, away from the feudal inheritance, and away from rationalism of the Enlightenment. It’s very similar to the remarkable German dramatist Büchner who wrote, he died at 25 of tuberculosis, an incredible dramatist. And I’m really serious. He could have been almost as great as Shakespeare, and who also combined ordinary language with poetic flashes constantly, all the time. Short, brief lines in hero players, mainly Büchner. So there were others who were dealing with this approach at the same time, trying to forge a whole new approach to literature and to writing. And I think what they gave us in modernity and, what they gave us for the future, the boldness of, because these guys are doing it for the first time.

They’re innovating. They’re going against, not only the romanticism of Schiller and Goethe, and these sort of iconic God-like figures. They’re going against the feudal tradition. They’re going off Germany. They’re going against the tradition of folk tale, of so many things. And they’re determined to find a new way of expressing feelings and thoughts about big pictures of nationalism, and identity and religion, enlightenment and all of that. They’re trying to express it, but they’re also trying to express daily human emotion and feeling, and the humanity of just daily life. So it’s, I think with all of this here, you know, Freud talks about Heine, Kafka talked, we get so many who hark back to this, to this guy and his writings. And, what I wanted to try and show was to see his context in when he’s living in the first half of the 19th century, you know, the first half of the 1800’s. And how, for me, he really is prophetic. Not only the burning of the books, obviously, but in many other ways with literature, with thought, with the ironic, and with hard to combine these huge ideas on human nature, life, death, nationalism, birth, country, et cetera. With ordinariness of waking up after the mad carnival of love and light, and just yawning. Okay, so I think we’ll hold it there, and we can take some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Okay. Hi Helene. Was he really that handsome?

A: I wish I’d be in that handsome, Helene. That’s a brilliant question, please. That’s the beginning of a poem for you. Well that’s, that’s the drawing of him. It’s him, yeah, certainly was.

Q: Gene. Why was his work banned in the German states?

A: I hope explained, because he’s so satirical and challenging. He loves Germany passionately, but he’s not scared to subvert. Germany - I have my reasons why. Don’t talk to me about Germany anymore. I love it, but don’t talk to me. I have my reasons, you know, cut. He’s subverting. Really what he’s doing is, he’s subverting German romanticism, the beginning stirrings of German nationalism. ‘Cause he sees where dangerously it can go to. And he sees the backlash against Napoleonic Emancipatory reforms. The backlash of, well, if you want jobs in professions, lawyers, doctors, universities, elsewhere, got to convert to Catholicism, or Christianity. So yeah, he’s banned for all these reasons. He’s a challenge. Who, was it Shakespeare’s line, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” The writer as the subverter.

Q: Gene. How did Hitler deal with Heine? His works, his reputation?

A: Yeah, great question Gene also, because as I said, I mean, they burnt his books in that 1933 burning, but, they could not stop German, millions and millions of Germans reading. But what they did was, they published his works and they used the name “anonymous”, and they pumped it through propaganda and school education, university. This was somehow anonymous in German literary history.

Q: David. Did he need to be Christian to excel in Paris?

A: Great question. No, I don’t think so, because Paris was living more through the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic period. No, you, you know, no. He was much, he could be more honest about his inner conflicts and in fact he was feted in Paris, was a kind of celebrity, what we would call today celebrity.

Q: Lorna. How about the original German?

A: Ah! My German is so bad and minimal. I’m hesitant. I do know a bit of German, but I’d rather leave it. Okay. We can find, there are many, if you want to look online or get the books, you know, one can get the books, or read online the original German that he wrote in.

Darrell. Similarities. Exactly.

Karen. And I don’t think that phrase is a one-off for Heine, you know, about the burning of the books, and later where they burned books, they were later to burn people. It’s not a one-off 'cause he, I mean he wrote volumes of poetry, literature, many, many things. Newspaper articles, satirical pieces. Many, many things are quite prophetic. I just want to take out a few.

Q: Karen. Since the Jewish people are known as people of the book, you think Heine was aware of the implications of his statement about burning?

A: Yes, absolutely. That it’s, I mean, because the original story that he wrote that it came from was actually a story. We’re not going into the details, where the Quran is burnt by Christian, you know, crusaders, Christian soldiers. That’s really the story he wrote. But you know, he’s absolutely aware as a writer, and an artist, that it can apply to any culture. And I think he’s aware, I dunno if he’s aware that it can lead directly to the destruction of the Jews. But he’s aware that wherever they, if they burn, because what they’re doing is obviously, as we all know, they’re burning ideas, you know, and when you burn ideas, not just even ban or sense or stop, you burn the people who came up with the ideas. And then you, you know, you are on a, you can’t stop on that path.

Q: Judy. Why did the translations? Who did them, they seem so perfect English.

A: Yeah, Judy, thanks. I looked hard to get really good translations and I went through a lot, and these are the ones I found that I responded to the most in English, and there many remain.

Is it not more Leonard Cohen, My Gypsy Wife than Dylan? Yeah, except for me, Leonard Cohen sometimes has the ironic. Dylan has it much more for me in a way. But you’re absolutely right. Leonard Cohen, in many of his songs and poems, completely playing with the ironic voice in literature.

Q: Helene. Did he only write in German?

A: I think primarily in German. Pardon me, I didn’t really find much in French. I think German really was, it was the language that he absolutely adored.

Jack. Almost 200 rather than 100 years ago. Oh, sorry, you’re right. Thank you. Thanks for, thanks for correcting me. It’s nearly 200 years ago, it’s even more incredible. Thanks Jack.

Ruth. By the way, 1856. Okay, thank you very much, I appreciate it. Can never get one thought past anybody in this amazing group called Lockdown University. Thank you.

Q: Gabriel. Has any of Heine’s irony survived a German leader?

A: Yeah, I think after the war, I think Brecht, Brecht is full of the irony. I think Kafka, well he’s post-war. He’s pre-war, sorry. So, I think that Kafka certainly, I mean Kafka, when he, when he originally read his work to his friends in Prague, they laughed. They thought this is completely satirical and witty and funny. They never thought of it as sort of, you know, and angsty and you know, all the stuff that it’s been taken up in the west. They saw it as witty, absurd, ridiculous, funny. A guy wakes up and he’s an insect, so you mad or you’re nuts, but it’s funny. Carry on. Okay. And there are lots of records of of Kafka being responded to with wit.

Q: So did his, did Heine’s irony survive in Kafka?

A: Absolutely full of it for me and many, many others, absolutely. It’s not only Jewish, it’s Brecht, is Heine. Later there’s, for me, to a degree and some of the great filmmakers, Wim Wenders, The American Friend, you know, it’s in some of the films, some of the literature. Absolutely. That it’s there. Thank you. D

ennis. If he were live today, it would be a star on late night TV. Absolutely, absolutely would. Okay, thanks. Thanks for your kind comments, Dennis.

Rhonda. Why don’t you know David? Oh that’s very kind of you. Thank you so much. Keep well and keep well in Toronto, where my sister lives. Okay, Marion, thank you. Okay, thank you Candy, for your comments.

Q: Barbara. Dreams of palm trees in the East, is that a desire for Israel and Judaism?

A: It could well be. We can’t conclusively say so, but could well be Rita, thank you. Debbie. Thanks, very kind.

Paula. At 92 is the first time I’ve read Heine. Ah, do yourself a favour, Paula. And thank you. Amazing, amazing, you’ve reached that age. Incredible. Enjoy Heine, it’s all I can say. And have fun. And imagine having a dinner with Woody Allen and , a few others. You know, afterwards, Herbert. His poem about his death and Matilda reminds me of Christina Rossetti. Yeah, that’s great. I never thought of that, lovely. When I’m dead, my dearest sing those sad songs for me.

Yep. No sentiment. There’s no sentimentality, which is what a lot of the German romantic poets were later obviously accused of. You know, there’s no sentimentality and, that’s what makes him also so modern, post the two wars.

Q: David, do you sense frustration in poems when he realised he was dying from syphilis?

A: Absolutely, absolutely. He was bedridden for quite a few years.

Q: Susan. Has he been rehabilitated in Germany?

A: Yeah, I mean there’s statues, there are all sorts of things, you know, huge, huge in Germany, and globally. There’s a very interesting book by, well I won’t go into it, but there’s a lot of academics and who’ve written about Heine you know, in past wild times, German, British, American, and European.

Herbert. A piece of useless information. He was born the same year as Donny Zeti and they both died of venereal disease. Oh, okay. Thank you. Let me just go back.

Q: Is there 19th century painter whose work you would consider analogist to Heine’s poetry?

A: That’s a fascinating question. I’d have to think about that and get back to you, Paula.

Barbara. It seems that more people read poetry then, then now. Definitely. Well, we also got to remember it’s before the internet, before TV, movies, radio, before what, in theatre and in cultural studies we call you know, the dominance of the visual, which obviously comes through photography, film, TV, internet, et cetera. The windows, it’s all, it’s the dominance of the visual in our society. Whereas in those days, they had performances live, but it was just words and you know, and you just read it by candlelight mostly. Yep. So poetry and literature were the educated, those who could read and write obviously was yeah, much more popular. Maybe today it’s in songs, you know, with a jazz or some pop songs or folk, you know, it’s maybe partly morphed there.

Carol. The George Eliot. Yeah, I mean George is fascinating because her book, her novel Daniel Deronda, which has a fantastically, you know, really complex, three-dimensional, I suppose to use the jargon, more positive sense of the Jewish characters. She was completely without, I didn’t, I don’t see George Elliot as full of prejudice, the opposite. She didn’t have prejudice of her times. She saw, understood Heine as a man of the world because, coming back to it, I think of the horns of the dilemma, all these different conflicts and things she must have felt, she’s a woman writing all these, she’s got to use a male pseudonym to get published. So I’m sure she understood a lot of these dilemmas that Heine did. And she got it. She had the imaginative capacity to understand Heine from his own culture. And I found it fascinating that she chose him to put on a pedestal in a way. And I think he was a man not only of his time, but a, I hate to use the word prophet, but maybe he foresaw what was to come, you know, a hell of a lot. Because he was not scared to write about the dilemmas, nationally and psychologically, of his times.

Peter. Was not involved in efforts to reform Jewish religious observance. Yes. And reforming Jewish customs. Yes. I’ve read Amos Elon’s play, The Pity of it All. It was distantly connected with the first movers needing to reform Judaism. You’re absolutely right. And I think Trudy spoke about that the other day, absolutely right. You know, and to, in a way bring Jewish people, Jewish culture into modernity. And religious observance, customs, other things, beliefs, bring it into modernity. He was absolutely part of that. And in the beginning I think had the hope that that could be achieved. You know, and then the questions of assimilation, all those that come afterwards of course are part of the big debate.

Q: Gene. Have the Germans gone back to crediting him with his work?

A: Yep, absolutely.

Q: Bobby. Who was the Pauline?

A: I don’t know. Matilda was the name. I don’t even know if she’s a real character. I don’t think so. I think it’s poetic licence, but the poem. Yeah. Matilda is the name that he gave to his wife.

Damir. Ah, that was an ironic art, it’s great. Okay. I didn’t mention, yeah, the one great song Lorelei. I know, because I just thought so many people would know it, Marion. So you’re absolutely right. It’s a song, it’s a poem. It’s one of the great ones that he wrote. I just guess I thought everybody would know it or many. And I think it’s, it’s a beautiful, wonderful, and the Nazis could of course never stop it. They would sing it, they would recite it, Germans all through the 12 years of the German of the Third Reich, so it’s absolutely, and it’s beautiful and stunning.

Okay, so thank you very much everyone. Hope you have a great rest of the weekend. And thank you Lauren.