On Sun, 9 Dec 2001 12:21:31 +0100, Martin J. Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
In particular, Italian = cuccagna (a post all spread with greese at the top
of which there are several prizes to grasp, if one managed to reach the top.
We have the idiom for a too favourable situation that is like the "albero
della cuccagna" (from the Latin "cucania").
What you are saying - in your interpretation - is very correct, since
Brecht himself justify this allegory with the reference to "literary
tradition" which fruits, the cherries, the youngsters (the avant-garde )
would access and exploit undisturbed. Also, positively , that tradition is
there to feed the next generation (but also, it is very controversial
whether the young man with patched trousers signifies simply a proletarian,
a communist, a young poet accessing tradition, so it is much a multifaceted
and plurilayered imagery. I am interested in how one interprets this kind
and odd relationship between the two (the anomalous and yet desirable
kindness with which the cherry thief salutes the owner of the tree, Brecht
himself, and Brecht’s tolerance towards the young man in that he is
stealing something that is supposed to “belong” to his own enclosed garden
(which of course Brecht, as a communist, does not claim evidently any real
possession on, beyond the mere use of the adjective “MY”.
Thank you for the intervention and the entering into dialogue about
Brecht's poems.
>Latin: cucania /French:cocagne/ Italian: bengodi/ English: Cocaygne,
>Lubberland (which is closest to the German, which means lazy-ape-land.)
Does
>it have special associations with cherries in English? ŕ la (real) life is
>not a bowl of cherries?
>The best website, for anyone who reads German but also for the maps &
>illustrations, is www.galeon.com/tenochitlan358/literatur/html , as it
>includes the Grimms' version, the Hans Sachs poem, the Hoffmann von
>Fallersleben poem set by Schumann, I think also the Brueghel the Elder
>painting... It seems to me
>3. Erminia, that among other things Brecht may be saying to himself "Hey!
>cheer up, it's comparatively the Land of Cockayne here & nobody goes to
>prison for taking the cherries that exist in such profusion, this is the
>life!" The children & youths in those illustrations are grinning away
(when
>their mouths aren't full) & possibly whistling for joy. It's the "naive"
>version of the Communist dream & the opposite of murderous fascist
pomposity
>& Spiessigkeit. Brecht may even have been thinking of his own propensity of
>pinching the "cherries" in other men's works (quite apart from letting his
>handmaids write his works for him).By the way, the last line of the poem
>must read "I heard him...", not the present tense. The translation
>unfortunately both prettifies & uglifies the original in rhyming at the
>beginning, and copying its syntactical structure ("In my cherry tree.../Sat
>a young man..."etc); it's so difficult to get that Brecht sound in English,
>though translating him *looks* like an easy option.
>Cheers,
>Martin
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