Heine’s Divan: West-Eastern Voyages after Goethe

Abstract

ABSTRACT Heinrich Heine has long been recognized as an early admirer of Goethe’s Divan. In Die romantische Schule, he issues an enthusiastic endorsement that helped popularize Goethe’s late poetry in the French-speaking world, and in his own poetic production, above all in Buch der Lieder, he repeatedly orients himself eastwards in terms of settings and designs. This article considers the language of flowers in Traumbilder I, the allegorical resonances of the Orient in the famous ‘Fichtenbaum’ poem, and the mirroring of Goethe’s Hafiz in the concluding poems of Nordsee II, ‘Fragen’, ‘Der Phönix’, and ‘Im Hafen’. Throughout the cycles of his collection, Heine embarks on West-Eastern voyages after Goethe.