Elfenlied Explained

"Elfenlied" (pronounced as /de/, "fairy song") is the conventional title of a 1780 poem by Goethe, and of a later (c. 1830) poem by Eduard Mörike (and of their various respective adaptations to music).

Goethe's poem was written in 1780, in a letter sent to Charlotte von Stein, without a title, but introduced by Die Elfen sangen "the elves/fairies sang"; the title "Elfenlied" (and variants) were only set in editions of Goethe's collected poems (titled "A Midnight Fairy Song" by Thomas 1859).^[1] Goethe's poem is Romantic, invoking the image of a fairy-dance under the impression of a moonlit night.It was set to music many times, e.g. as "Elfenliedchen" by Julius Kniese (1900), as "Elfensang" by Erich J. Wolff (1907) and as "Elfenlied" by Alexander Zemlinsky (1934).^[2]

Mörike's poem was written at some point between 1826 and early 1828 (first published in 1832).^[3] It is humorous, its premise being a pun on Elf (or Elfe), the German word both for "elf" or "fairy" and "eleven":^[4] It describes an Elfe (a fairy) awakened one hour early for the fairy-dance, at eleven o'clock instead of at midnight, due to mistaking the watchman's calling out of the eleventh hour for the calling of the "Elves" to the fairy-dance. Still half-asleep, the Elf mistakes glow-worms sitting on a stone wall for the lit halls of the fairy-hall and, trying to look in, bashes his head against the stone.The poem was set to music by Hugo Wolf in 1888 (the German title of this work is also rendered "Elfin dream" or "The elfin's dream" in English-language music catalogues).

Hugo Wolf also composed a separate choral piece called "Elfenlied", in this case an adaptation from words in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (the "fairy song" from act 2, scene 5, "Bunte Schlangen, zweigezüngt"/ "You spotted Snakes with double tongue").^[5]

Text

Goethe

English translation by W.G. Thomas (1859)^[6]

Mörike

In popular culture

The poem is the namesake of the anime and manga series Elfen Lied.

See also

• Der Erlkönig
• Elveskud
• Elfen Lied (2002 manga)

Notes and References

1. Letter to Charlotte von Stein dated 12 October 1780. Goethe-WA-IV, Bd. 4, 313f.
2. cited after lieder.net
3. Udo Pillokat, Verskunstprobleme bei Eduard Mörike (1969), p. 36.
4. elfe is a colloquial or regional variant of elf "eleven" especially in reference to the cardinal number (but here used by the night watchman to announce the eleventh hour).Elfe is normally the feminine form of masculine Elf "elf", but occasionally (as here by Mörike) also used as masculine.German Elf is a direct loan from English "elf", the native German equivalent being Alb, and is used to refer to the tiny creatures of the "fairy" type adopted from English literature (Mörike's elf is small enough to mistake glow-worms for lit windows of a fairy-hall); the word is first used in German in the 1742 translation of Paradise Lost by Johann Jakob Bodmer, and popularised in the second half of the 18th century via Wieland's 1762 translation of A Midsummernight's Dream.Pfeifer (ed.), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen (1989) s.v. "Elfe".
5. "Elfenlied: 'Bunte Schlangen, zweigezüngt' aus Shakespeare’s Sommernachtstraum, f. vierstimm. Chor, Soli u. Orch., deutsch u. engl. Part. Mk 6 n. Klavierauszug Mk 2. Chorst. 8. Mk 1,20" published in May 1894 by Fürstner, Berlin."(‘You spotted snakes’, from A Midsummer Night's Dream), sop., ch., orch. (c. 1890, arr. from song for v. and pf., 1888, but not same as Elfenlied in Mörike‐Lieder)" Wolf, Hugo in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Ernest Newman, Hugo Wolf (2013), p. 265-
6. W. G. Thomas (trans.),, The Minor Poetry of Goethe. A Selection from His Songs, Ballads and Other Lesser Poems (1859), p. 105.