Does Wilhelm Busch comment on achieving new things with old materials (the "olden clay"); on putting new wine into old bottles (cf. Matthew 9:17: "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out..."); on humanizing humans despite their hunter/gatherer DNA, (which has hardly gone through 100 generations since, say, Socrates!)? Well, yes, of course - though DNA was unrecognized by the era of Busch. But, really, that aspect is too obvious to belabor further. I don't want to insult your intelligence.
So let's talk of something less obvious. I do know it IS less obvious, because I happened to become aware of it only when translating this poem. What's more, it's truly preposterous, hence shall fit me perfectly.
My nose was stubbed into it by the ultimate (i.e. the punch) line of the poem. Want to guess the nature of that Aha! moment? Need a hint? Ok, here is my dashing tongue-in-cheek hint:
— The Winter left — the Summer came —
He brought (instead of knitties)
the long admired — magic game
of blossoms — and of ditties.
How this does change — from year to year
I ponder — nigh with sorrow:
What's lived has died — what's there was here —
Today — Becomes — Tomorrow —
The Sculptress Nature — needs to knead —
the olden Clay — and stretches
again its strength — o'er house and mead —
to fit — Her latest — Sketches —
But (you are screaming), while it is true that Emily Dickinson wrote about Mother Nature in a similar way; and while one can find many such poems in her posthumous œuvre - there are, you remind me, even one or the other on this small site - and while Busch's prosody is somewhat reminiscent of the old church hymns that Emily was so familiar with and used to so great an effect; still - HEAVENS! HEAVENS! - Emily Dickinson was a GENIUS and was UNIQUE (in the true and now largely forgotten sense of that much-abused word)! No-one preceded her, no-one was like her, no-one ever followed her! Or dared to. Would I DARE to deny that?
Not at all. Nor would I want to. Because I love her poetry. And because you are absolutely right.
All I wanted to say - as both fun and bait - is that Wilhelm Busch was a genius and unique (in the above sense), too. Plus, like Dickinson, he was a famous recluse, a "behavioral scientist" of the soul, and never afraid to speak the truth. But he did so compassionately and cautiously. As Emily once said, as if for both of them: "Tell all the truth but tell it slant..."
Of course, there lay an ocean between Dickinson and Busch. Although their birthdates are only two years apart and although the world has had a hard time dealing with either of them. Dickinson was unpublished in her lifetime and then, for a long time, was regarded as 'that quaint little woman in white'.
[Or something of that nature - read Robert Frost's comments about her, if you don't believe me. But if she was indeed only 'that quaint little woman in white', why did her relatives and editors bowdlerize her manuscripts, why did they sweep her dashing dashes under the family rug?]
Busch, yes, Busch was published. And beloved, particularly by the common Krauts (Sauerkraut is one of my best friends, both literally and literary, so don't sniff at my spicy epithets about this issue of intestinal fortitude)! Busch even had his name included among the luminaries of the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum", which must account for something in so (personally) modest a soul.
But something else did happen to Busch, vaguely reminiscent of what happened to that other truly unique genius and expert of the American soul, Samuel Langhorne Clemens of Hannibal, Missouri (whose best-known nom de plume was Mark Twain, and some of whose books - incidentally, and sad to tell - are still proscribed by quite a few school boards in the USofA). In Europe, Busch and Twain were simply neutered: they became avuncular authors of innocuous children stories, of moral-laden adventure tales. Well-fixed, well selling!
Take me, for instance. When I was in my early teens, I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (in German) - and so did many of my classmates. Marvellous stuff, we thought. Must swim in the Mississippi, sometimes.
Much later, though, I happened to spend quite a few years - and very happy ones, too! - in Columbia, Missouri - and there I re-read the stories by that famous Missourian (the other 'famous Missourian' was Walt Disney, but I'll have to suppress him and Hollywood for the moment or I'll never get to finish my comments: they are far too long already, sorry).
So in Columbia I read Mark Twain's works in English. Or, rather, American. These stories were eye openers. About Mark Twain and Missouri. And the Midwest, and beyond. Far beyond. And what had been strands of innocent children stories turned into tapestries of social critique - so poignant, so potent, so precise, and, yes, so prescient that they took my breath away. They were as prescient, indeed, as many poems by Dickinson and Busch.
Of course, devastating social critique and searing psychological insight happen to be characteristics shared by these three contemporary, though otherwise quite different writers. Social critique and psychological insight are regarded with great suspicion by the powers-that-be (but received with great rejoicing mixed with a good dose of "Schadenfreude" by the public at large). And for good reason, too. So it shouldn't be too surprising to understand what happened to these three authors.
[We need to feign sympathy here: It must be difficult for the powers-that-be to be confronted by an accurate, merciless mirror - while all the while trying to convince themselves of their own beauty. And by having to sell that imagined beauty for a living. But, alas, selling seems to be their profession...]
But I digress. So here are three writers at the genius level, where the air has become very thin indeed and where few can in truth survive, much less prosper. Of course, as I have demonstrated ad nauseam here, they can still be pressed into academic service by citable gossip and quotable similarity. Ok, so I did it. But that's also the extent of it.
Needless to add that Busch and Dickinson most likely never knew of one another. But even if they had, it wouldn't have made much difference. This is what "unique" and "genius" mean for art and the human soul.
As for the rest of us, we are merely lucky enough to enjoy the results. And, who knows, maybe we shall even become wise enough - in spite of our hunter/gatherer DNA - to take them to heart...
And as long as we are passing on the DNA, let's add a short poem by Ludwig Uhland, which seems to share some of the same spirit:
