1. Thanks very much for that learned & discriminating answer, Candice. I'd
have to reread the whole thing, take a course in Mediaeval lit & in general
upgrade my creaking brain before I say any more on the subject!
2. I think you're right about Cockaign, Robin. I know very little about it,
except that it's Schlaraffenland in German, the expression "wie im
Schlaraffenland" being current idiom (except for such relentless modernizers
as Klaus, to whom it may be "archaic"). There's a lovely set of woodcuts (?)
by Henny Friedeck, 1910 for a Viennese publisher, showing kids gorging
themselves in various ways on improbably available goodies, there's even a
cherry hanging down from a cheese (?) in one of them.
www.adh.brighton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/LP104.html Brecht might
even have known it!
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? à 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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