In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

14 epilogue: The Meaning of Death in Winterreise now that we have analyzed in detail songs 14–24 as well as the cyclic aspects of part 2 of Winterreise, we can return to the questions left unanswered in chapter 2 at the beginning of our journey: How should we understand the notion of death in Winterreise, and how can we justify this specific view historically? as discussed in section 2.2, death (and suicide in particular) was a common theme in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German literature. We saw that in the literature preceding Winterreise, death might be understood either in a concrete sense (as a description of a physical event) or in a symbolic manner. i referred to Goethe’s Werther as an instance of the former and to Friedrich Schlegel ’s Lucinde as an example of the latter. This duality was related to different ways in which the function of language could be understood. eighteenth-century writers required language to be used in a precise manner (the “signifier” is unequivocally related to the “signified”), while the romantics suggested that words may, or indeed should, be used in a way that avoided universally understood meaning (a given “signifier” is detached from any single “signified”). With the romantics, a symbolic understanding of death does not necessarily include an end point. rather, as we saw in section 2.2, writers such as Schlegel and novalis argued that death signifies a change in the mode of existence, paradoxically , a kind of continuation of life in a different guise. i quoted a fragment by novalis that states this clearly: “Death is the romanticizing principle of our life. . . . Life is strengthened through death” (1997, 154). Death is, in a way, in the service of life: it can provide meanings beyond the reach of our mundane, finite, and earthly existence. Thus, it can be associated with the infinite and the eternal. in section 2.3 i suggested that in Winterreise the notion of death should be understood in a symbolic way rather than as a description of a concrete physical event. Starting with “Der greise Kopf,” the protagonist declares his desire to die, deciding in “Der Wegweiser” to seek death intentionally, a goal that, however, remains unobtainable. if we consider suicide as it appears in Werther, for example, the decision to die should (or at least could) lead to the protagonist killing himself . But in Winterreise, death remains beyond the reach of the protagonist. Suicide , and by extension physical death, does not seem to correspond to the poetic content of the cycle unless we assume that the protagonist lacks the courage to take his own life. it therefore seems that Winterreise is not speaking about a con- 192 Cycle crete, physical death. in other words, death does not necessarily mean the end point of the wanderer’s existence but might signify a change in the nature of this existence. Several poems provide a key for giving death a specific symbolic interpretation : death can be understood as referring to a state in which the protagonist no longer feels the misery caused by the loss of his beloved. Death is accordingly not the end of the wanderer’s physical existence but a state in which his wretched memories no longer haunt him. pairing death with ending the grieving for a lost love can be found at the close of another major song cycle, Schumann’s Dichterliebe , to poems of Heinrich Heine. its final poem, “Die alten, bösen Lieder” (The old, evil songs), consists of six stanzas, the first five of which describe a coffin whose dimensions are so immense that the poem clearly has an ironic air. The sixth and final stanza finally tells us the reason for the gargantuan size: Wisst ihr warum den Sarg wohl So gross und schwer mag sein? ich senkt’ auch meine Liebe und meinen Schmerz hinein! Do you know why the coffin must be so large and heavy? i also sank my love and my grief therein. as the love about which the protagonist speaks in Dichterliebe was great, so its grave must be big enough to encompass all sorrow. The poem’s ironic tone suggests that the coffin is indeed sufficiently large: since the speaker is capable of humor , he will likely be able to leave the misery of his lost love behind. This view is also conveyed by Schumann’s music: the final song is followed by a dreamy, almost otherworldly piano postlude in the major...

Share