CaliforniaLyme
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Karl Marx's Early Literary Experiments Source: Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol.1,
From the Albums of Poems Dedicated to Jenny Von Westphalen (who became his wife) ------------------------------------------------- Written: in November 1836
To Jenny
I
Jenny! Teasingly you may inquire Why my songs ``To Jenny'' I address, When for you alone my pulse beats higher, When my songs for you alone despair, When you only can their heart inspire, When your name each syllable must confess, When you lend each note melodiousness, When no breath would stray from the Goddess? 'tis because so sweet the dear name sounds, And its cadence says so much to me, And so full, so sonorous it resounds, Like to vibrant Spirits in the distance, Like the gold-stringed Cithern's harmony, Like some wondrous, magical existence.
II
See! I could a thousand volumes fill, Writing only ``Jenny'' in each line, Still they would a world of thought conceal, Deed eternal and unchanging Will, Verses sweet that yearning gently still, All the glow and all the Aether's shine, Anguished sorrow's pain and joy divine, All of Life and Knowledge that is mine. I can read it in the stars up younder, From the Zephyr it comes back to me, From the being of the wild waves' thunder. Truly, I would write it down as a refrain, For the coming centuries to see -- LOVE IS JENNY, JENNY IS LOVE's NAME.
From the Book of Love Sonnets to Jenny
I
Take all, take all these songs from me That Love at your feet humbly lays, Where, in the Lyre's full melody, Soul freely nears in shining rays. Oh! if Song's echo potent be To stir to longing with sweet lays, To make the pulse throb passionately That your proud heart sublimely sways, Then shall I witness from afar How Victory bears you light along, Then shall I fight, more bold by far, Then shall my music soar the higher; Transformed, more free shall ring my song, And in sweet woe shall weep my Lyre.
II
To me, no Fame terrestrial That travels far through land and nation To hold them thrillingly in thrall With its far-flung reverberation Is worth your eyes, when shining full, Your heart, when warm with exultation, Or two deep-welling tears that fall, Wrung from your eyes by song's emotion. Gladly I'd breathe my Soul away In the Lyre's deep melodious sighs, And would a very Master die, Could I the exalted goal attain, Could I but win the fairest prize -- To soothe in you both joy and pain.
III
Ah! Now these pages forth may fly, Approach you, trembling, once again, My spirits lowered utterly By foolish fears and parting's pain. My self-deluding fancies stray Along the boldest paths in vain; I cannot win what is most High, And soon no more hope shall remain. When I return from distant places To that dear home, filled with desire, A spouse holds you in his embraces, And clasps you proudly, Fairest One. Then o'er me rolls the lightning's fire Of misery and oblivion.
IV
Forgive that, boldly risking scorn The Soul's deep yearning to confess, The singer's lips must hotly burn To waft the flames of his distress. Can I against myself then turn And lose myself, dumb, comfortless, The very name of singer spurn, Not love you, having seen your face? So high the Soul's illusions aspire, O'er me you stand magnificent; 'tis but your tears that I desire, And that my songs you only enjoyed To lend them grace and ornament; Then may they flee into the Void!
* From the Book of Songs To Jenny
I
Words -- lies, hollow shadows, nothing more, Crowding Life from all sides round! In you, dead and tired, must I outpour Spirits that in me abound? Yet Earth's envious Gods have scanned before Human fire with gaze profound; And forever must the Earthling poor Mate his bosom's glow with sound. For, if passion leaped up, vibrant, bold, In the Soul's sweet radiance, Daringly it would your worlds enfold, Would dethrone you, would bring you down low, Would outsoar the Zephyr-dance. Ripe a world above you then would grow.
Marx was very critical of the literary qualities of his early poems but he believed that they conveyed his warm and sincere feelings. Later on, his view of them grew even more critical. Laura Lafargue, for example, wrote,
``My father treated his verses very disrepectfully; whenever my parents mentioned them, they would laugh to their hearts content.''
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96238 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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CaliforniaLyme
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Yup- THE Karl Marx(_*_!*_!!
Kinda changes ones view of him, eh*)*!)!???
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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The grave of Karl Marx is just another communist plot.
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Andie333
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Nancy...
Posts: 2549 | From never never land | Registered: May 2005
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charlie
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...change our opinion of him?....not really; it just shows how a once sensitive, caring person can get mired in the gray drudgery of socialist theoretics.
Take for example the dour and glum architect of the Chinese 'cultural revolution', word has it that when he was little, before he got enmeshed in the stultifyingly boring communist ideology, such a jovial and upbeat personality was he, that the other kids called him rotflMao.
Really I don't think anybody is going to take this poetry too seriously, given the downside.
Charlie
Posts: 2804 | From Texas | Registered: Oct 2000
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Greatcod
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Well, as a poet, he's no George W Bush, the master of our capitalist language. But he was a caring sensitive man who's work was in response to the brutish excesses of the unregulated capitalism of the early Industial Revolution..the kind of thing that endures today in India and Pakistan where children under 12 are made to work 12 hours a day seven days a week in factories and mines. He would have been appalled with Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China.
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CaliforniaLyme
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Yup Greatcod, I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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sometimesdilly
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hmm. well, KM was not much of a poet, but he didn't NEED to do anything else well.
Any system of thought and religion can be- -and has been-- perverted and used towards contrary aims, especially democracy, and yes, socialism has been as well.
I admire those whose thinking is premised on the goal of social justice.
dilly
Posts: 2507 | From lost in the maze | Registered: Aug 2006
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hopeful123
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communist plot!@#!#
-------------------- some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield Posts: 1160 | From NY | Registered: Oct 2002
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