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111-514: The Duino Elegies ( German : Duineser Elegien ) are a collection of ten elegies written by the Bohemian - Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke . He was then "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", and began the elegies in 1912 while a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis at Duino Castle on the Adriatic Sea . The poems were dedicated to

222-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it

333-402: A second language , and 75–100   million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220   million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90   million people, or 16% of

444-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become

555-567: A dancer or the mythical Eurydice . Rilke composed in a rush of inspiration: writing nearly all the poems of Part I of the Sonnets between 2–5 February 1922, completing the Duino Elegies between 7–15 February, and completing the remaining poems of Sonnets between 16–22 February. Rilke saw the creation of the Sonnets and Elegies as a twin birth. In the midst of his writing, Rilke wrote Klossowska: "That which weighed upon and tortured me

666-432: A feminine form of "sublime love" and a masculine "blind animal passion". At the time the first elegies were written, Rilke often "expressed a longing for human companionship and affection, and then, often immediately afterwards, asking whether he could really respond to such companionship if it were offered to him ..." He noticed a "decline in the lives of lovers ... when they began to receive, they also began to lose

777-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from

888-472: A much too innocent view might maintain, in the mixture of poetry and prose.... The evil, in the neoromantic lyric, consists in the fitting out of the words with a theological overtone, which is belied by the condition of the lonely and secular subject who is speaking there: religion as ornament." Adorno further believed the poems reinforced the German value of commitment that supported a cultural attraction towards

999-409: A mystic and the poems could be treated as mystical literature, whereas more recent critics believe the poems should be seen as a study of mysticism itself. Theodor W. Adorno wrote "But the fact that the neoromantic lyric sometimes behaves like the jargon, or at least timidly readies the way for it, should not lead us to look for the evil of the poetry simply in its form. It is not simply grounded, as

1110-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained

1221-635: A permit meant a death sentence. This systematic suppression forced the Muslims to seek refuge in mountainous regions of southern Andalusia; Ronda was one such refuge. On May 25, 1566, Philip II decreed the use of the Arabic language (written or spoken) illegal, required that doors to homes remain open on Fridays to verify that no Muslim Friday prayers were conducted, and levied heavy taxes on Morisco trades. This led to several rebellions, one of them in Ronda under

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1332-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In

1443-578: A principal role in the development of modern Spanish bullfighting . In a family responsible for such innovations as the use of the cape, or muleta , and a sword especially designed for the kill, Pedro in particular transformed bullfighting into "an art and a skill in its own right, and not simply ... a clownishly macho preamble to the bull's slaughter". Ronda was heavily affected by the Spanish Civil War , which led to emigration and depopulation. The scene in chapter 10 of Hemingway 's For Whom

1554-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it

1665-401: A series of distinct encounters. Gadamer saw Rilke as a philosophical poet whose work reveals the limits of human comprehension. He argues that the alienation of the contemporary world stands as an obstacle to making sense of such encounters. According to Gadamer, Rilke's point toward how to approach those limits, by making these part of ourselves interpretation and reinterpretation can we address

1776-458: A symbol of the angel that was secular, divorced from religious doctrine and embodied a tremendous transcendental beauty. In this, however, Rilke commented that he was greatly influenced by the depiction of angels found in Islam . For Rilke, the symbol of the angel represents a perfection that is "beyond human contradictions and limitations" in a "higher level of reality in the invisible". Where there

1887-407: A young poet is terrified by the fragmentation and chaos of modern urban life . After he experienced a psychological crisis accompanied by severe depression . Rilke was invited in late 1911 to Duino Castle by Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis , whom he had met a few years earlier. Rilke and Marie collaborated on a translation of Dante's La Vita Nuova ( The New Life ) while at Duino. After

1998-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as

2109-519: Is accomplished ... but never within my heart and mind have I borne such a hurricane. I am still trembling from it ... And I went out to caress this old Muzot, just now, in the moonlight." Immediately after completing the Elegies , he wrote Lou Andreas-Salomé that he had finished "all in a few days; it was a hurricane, as at Duino that time: all that was fiber, fabric in me, framework, cracked and bent." Duino Elegies , which are 859 lines long,

2220-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German

2331-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic

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2442-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German

2553-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25   million speak it as

2664-678: Is frequently quoted or referenced in television programs, motion pictures, music and other works when these works discuss the subject of love or angels. Rilke's works have also been appropriated for use by the New Age community and in self-help books, and he has been reinterpreted "as a master who can lead us to a more fulfilled and less anxious life". Rilke's work, and specifically, the Duino Elegies have influenced many poets, including Galway Kinnell , Sidney Keyes , John Ashbery , and W. H. Auden . The novelist Thomas Pynchon novel Gravity's Rainbow shows echoes of Rilke; its first lines mirror

2775-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in

2886-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as

2997-400: Is incongruity that adds to mankind's despair and anxiety is due to human nature keeping us clinging to the visible and the familiar. As mankind encounters the invisible and unknown higher levels represented by these angels, the experience of the invisible will be "terrifying" (in German, schrecklich ). As mankind came in contact with the terrifying beauty represented by these angels, Rilke

3108-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are

3219-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and

3330-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as

3441-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German

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3552-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c.  1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period

3663-646: Is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),

3774-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish

3885-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers

3996-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to

4107-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as

4218-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German

4329-414: The Duino Elegies are described as a metamorphosis of Rilke's " ontological torment" and an "impassioned monologue about coming to terms with human existence", discussing themes of "the limitations and insufficiency of the human condition and fractured human consciousness ... man's loneliness, the perfection of the angels, life and death, love and lovers, and the task of the poet". Rilke's poetry, and

4440-501: The Duino Elegies in particular, influenced many of the poets and writers of the twentieth century. In popular culture, his work is frequently quoted on the subject of love or of angels and referenced in television programs, motion pictures, music and other artistic works, in New Age philosophy and theology, and in self-help books. In 1910 Rilke completed the loosely autobiographical novel, Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge ( The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge ) in which

4551-576: The Duino Elegies. Rilke, who had become romantically involved with Baladine Klossowska , journeyed to Switzerland looking to find a place to live near Geneva , where he could immerse himself in French culture. Rilke and Klossowska wanted to move into the Château de Muzot , a 13th-century manor house that lacked gas and electricity, near Veyras in the Rhone Valley , but they had trouble negotiating

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4662-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share

4773-797: The Eastern Roman Empire , under whose rule Acinipo was abandoned. Later, the Visigothic king Liuvigild captured the city. Ronda was part of the Visigoth realm until 713, when it fell to the Umayyad troops, who named it Hisn al-Rundah ("Castle of Rundah") and made it the capital of the Takurunna province . It was the hometown of the polymath Abbas ibn Firnas (810–887), an inventor , engineer , alleged aviator , chemist , physician , Muslim poet, and Andalusian musician . After

4884-480: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language

4995-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout

5106-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in

5217-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.  765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in

5328-574: The Sierra de las Nieves National Park . Around the city are remains of prehistoric settlements dating to the Neolithic , including the rock art of Cueva de la Pileta . The places of Arunda and Acinipo mentioned by Pliny have been traditionally identified with current Ronda. In the fifth century AD, Ronda was conquered by the Suebi , led by Rechila , being reconquered in the following century by

5439-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

5550-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

5661-460: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

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5772-682: The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. In the fashion world, Italian designer Giorgio Armani specially designed the bullfighting costume called ‘Goyesco’ for famed bullfighter Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez on the occasion of the Corrida Goyesca that took place on September 6, 2009, in Ronda. Cayetano's suit of lights was in the Goyaesque style, comprising a jacket, trousers, and cloak in techno-satin. The three pieces were embroidered with sequins, small glitter stones, and thread, all matching

5883-469: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

5994-601: The "Sixth Elegy". He moved to Paris later that year where he continued work on the "Sixth Elegy" and completed the "Third Elegy". During World War I, Rilke wrote the "Fourth Elegy", completing it the day before he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in November 1915. After Rilke was discharged in 1916, he returned to Munich for the duration of the war, but wrote very little poetry during that time. It wasn't until 1920 that Rilke began to focus on completing

6105-489: The Bell Tolls , describing the 1936 execution of Fascist sympathisers in a (fictional) village who are thrown off a cliff, is considered to be modeled on actual events of the time in Ronda. Ronda is situated in a mountainous area about 750 m (2,460 ft) above mean sea level . The inner relief is gentle and includes areas of pastureland and vegetable and cereal growing areas. The Guadalevín River runs through

6216-468: The Castle of Duino. As of 2014, at least 24 English-language translations had been published. Rilke is often seen as a spiritual guide in popular culture. In the United States, his poetry has been read as wisdom literature, and has been compared to the thirteenth-century Sufi (Muslim) mystic Rumi (1207–1273), and 20th century Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931). In popular culture, Rilke

6327-723: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

6438-470: The First Elegy, Rilke describes this frightened experience, defining beauty as ... nothing but beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Rilke depicted this infinite, transcendental beauty with the symbol of angels. However, he did not use the traditional Christian interpretation of angels . He sought to utilize

6549-748: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of

6660-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of

6771-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c.  1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of

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6882-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

6993-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are

7104-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c.  thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c.  1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy

7215-503: The Princess left to join her husband at their Lautschin estate, Rilke spent the next few weeks alone to focus on his work. While writing Das Marien-Leben ( The Life of Mary ) in January 1912, Rilke claimed that he heard a voice calling in the roar of the wind while walking along the cliffs near the castle, speaking the words that would become the first lines of the Duino Elegies : " Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? " ("Who, if I cried out, would hear me among

7326-402: The Princess upon their publication in 1923. During this ten-year period, the elegies languished incomplete for long stretches of time as Rilke had frequent bouts with severe depression —some of which were related to the events of World War I and being conscripted into military service. Aside from brief periods of writing in 1913 and 1915, he did not return to the work until a few years after

7437-465: The angel's presumed plenitude of being" (i.e. being, or existence, in German: Dasein ). Rilke used the images of love and of lovers as a way of showing mankind's potential and humanity's failures in achieving the transcendent understanding embodied by the angels. In the Second Elegy, Rilke wrote: Lovers, if Angels could understand them, might utter strange things in the midnight air. He depicted "the inadequacy of ordinary lovers", and contrasted

7548-507: The base first of guerrilla warriors, then of numerous bandits, whose deeds inspired artists such as Washington Irving , Prosper Mérimée , and Gustave Doré . In the 19th century, the economy of Ronda was mainly based on agricultural activities. In 1918, the city was the seat of the Assembly of Ronda , in which the Andalusian flag, coat of arms, and anthem were designed. Ronda's Romero family—from Francisco , born in 1698, to his son Juan, to his famous grandson Pedro , who died in 1839—played

7659-449: The city of my dreams, and I have finally found it in Ronda" and "Nothing is more startling in Spain than this wild and mountainous city.") Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls describes the execution of Nationalist sympathizers early in the Spanish Civil War. The Republicans murder the Nationalists by throwing them from cliffs in an Andalusian village, and Hemingway allegedly based the account on killings that took place in Ronda at

7770-492: The city, dividing it in two and carving out the steep, 100-plus-meter-deep El Tajo canyon above which the city perches. The Spanish fir is endemic to the mountains surrounding Ronda. American artists Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles spent many summers in Ronda as part-time residents of Ronda's old-town quarter called La Ciudad. Both wrote about Ronda's beauty and famous bullfighting traditions. Their collective accounts have contributed to Ronda's popularity over time. In

7881-496: The cliffs of El Tajo . Orson Welles said he was inspired by his frequent trips to Spain and Ronda (e.g. his unfinished film about Don Quixote ). After he died in 1985, his ashes were buried in a well on the rural property of his friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez . English writer George Eliot 's book Daniel Deronda ("Daniel of Ronda") tells the story of a Spanish Jew brought up as an Englishman. Some speculation existed that Eliot's ancestors had lived in Ronda prior to

7992-529: The colour of the background fabric. Ronda was used as the setting for the flower market in the 2017 animated movie Ferdinand . Ronda is accessible via highways ( Autovía A-374 ) and by rail from Algeciras and from Córdoba . A direct train from Madrid to Ronda operates twice daily. The single-track railway between Ronda and Algeciras was built between 1890 and 1892 by the Algeciras Gibraltar Railway Company . It enabled

8103-455: The dancer Wera Ouckama Knoop, who was once a friend of Ruth's, announcing the engagement. In turn, Gertrud sent an account of Wera's death at age 19 that moved Rilke to compose the Sonnets to Orpheus and complete the Duino Elegies . Rilke wrote that Wera's image dominates and moves the Sonnets . They frequently refer to her, directly addressing her by name and indirectly through allusions to

8214-400: The destitution of the time more clearly. The time remains destitute not only because God is dead, but because mortals are hardly aware and capable even of their own mortality." Rilke explores the nature of mankind's contact with beauty, and its transience, noting that humanity is forever only getting a brief, momentary glimpse of an inconceivable beauty and that it is terrifying. At the onset of

8325-482: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with

8436-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in

8547-612: The disintegration of the caliphate of Córdoba , Ronda became the capital of a small kingdom ruled by the Berber Banu Ifran , the taifa of Ronda . During this period, Ronda gained most of its Islamic architectural heritage. In 1065, Ronda was conquered by the taifa of Seville led by Abbad II al-Mu'tadid . Both the poet Abu al-Baqa ar-Rundi (1204–1285) and the Sufi scholar Ibn Abbad al-Rundi (1333–1390) were born in Ronda. The Islamic domination of Ronda ended in 1485, when it

8658-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of

8769-523: The existential problems of humanity's significance and impermanence. List of Duino Elegies Translations German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It

8880-695: The first decades of the 20th century, the famous German poet Rainer Maria Rilke spent extended periods in Ronda, including three months at the Hotel Reina Victoria (built in 1906) between December 1912 and February 1913; his room remains to this day as he left it, a minimuseum of Rilkeana. According to the hotel's publicity, Rilke wrote (though probably not in Spanish) He buscado por todas partes la ciudad soñada, y al fin la he encontrado en Ronda and No hay nada más inesperado en España que esta ciudad salvaje y montañera ("I have sought everywhere

8991-592: The first lines of the first elegy, with a "sound [that] is [the] scream of a V-2 rocket hitting London in 1944"; and The New York Times reviewer of Gravity's Rainbow wrote that, "the book could be read as a serio-comic variation on Rilke's Duino Elegies and their German Romantic echoes in Nazi culture ". Rilke's Duino Elegies influenced Hans-Georg Gadamer 's theories of hermeneutics —understanding how an observer (i.e. reader, listener, or viewer) interprets cultural artifacts (i.e. works of literature, music, or art) as

9102-450: The form of angels. Beginning with the first line of the collection, Rilke's despairing speaker calls upon the angels to notice human suffering and to intervene. There is a deeply felt despair and unresolvable tension in that no matter man's striving, the limitation of human and earthly existence renders humanity unable to reach out to the angels. The narrative voice Rilke employed in the Duino Elegies strives "to achieve in human consciousness

9213-452: The hierarchies of angels?") He quickly wrote them in his notebook and completed the draft of the '"First Elegy" that night. Within days, he drafted the "Second Elegy" and composed passages and fragments that would later be incorporated into later elegies—including the opening passage of the "Tenth Elegy". In the following years, Rilke worked sporadically on the elegies. While staying at Ronda , Spain in 1913, he wrote part of what would become

9324-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,

9435-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of

9546-467: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Ronda Its population is about 35,000. Ronda is known for its cliffside location and a deep canyon that carries the Guadalevín River and divides the town. It is one of the towns and villages that are included in

9657-552: The last outpost of Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula , Granada , was conquered, the Spanish decreed that all Muslims must either vacate the peninsula without their belongings or convert. Many people overtly converted to keep their possessions while secretly practicing their religion. Muslims who converted were called Moriscos . They were required to wear upon their caps and turbans a blue crescent. Traveling without

9768-566: The leadership of Al-Fihrey. Al-Fihrey's soldiers defeated the Spanish army sent to suppress them under the leadership of Alfonso de Aguilar. The massacre of the Spaniards prompted Phillip II to order the expulsion of all Moriscos in Ronda. In the early 19th century, the Napoleonic invasion and the subsequent Peninsular War caused much suffering in Ronda, whose inhabitants were reduced from 15,600 to 5,000 in three years. Ronda's area became

9879-495: The lease. At Rilke's suggestion, Werner Reinhart , a Swiss merchant who used his wealth to support composers and writers, leased the property on their behalf. In July 1921, Rilke and Klossowska had moved in. Later, Reinhart bought the property and turned it over to Rilke for life. During the summer of 1921, Rilke's daughter Ruth became engaged. In December, he sent a letter to Gertrud Ouckama Knoop, widow of his deceased friend Gerhard Ouckama Knoop  [ de ] and mother of

9990-422: The middle of a desert landscape and it is impossible to say whether they are arriving or departing, beginning or ending their performance". Rilke depicted the six artists about to begin their performance, and that they were used as a symbol of "human activity ... always travelling and with no fixed abode, they are even a shade more fleeting than the rest of us, whose fleetingness was lamented". Further, Rilke in

10101-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted

10212-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from

10323-418: The other side, the spiritual need to situate the transformation of love in this wider whole differently than was possible in the narrower orbit of life (which simply shut out death as the other). The Fifth Elegy is largely inspired by Pablo Picasso 's 1905 Rose Period painting Les Saltimbanques ("The Acrobats", also known as "The Family of Saltimbanques"), in which Picasso depicts six figures pictured "in

10434-404: The poem described these figures as standing on a "threadbare carpet" to suggest "the ultimate loneliness and isolation of Man in this incomprehensible world, practicing their profession from childhood to death as playthings of an unknown will ... before their 'pure too-little' had passed into 'empty too-much ' ". Because of the profound impact that the war had on him, Rilke expressed hope that

10545-493: The poems as "mystical blather" and described their "secular theology" as "impotent gossip". Novelist Hermann Hesse describes Rilke as evolving into his best poetry with the Duino Elegies , that "at each stage now and again the miracle occurs, his delicate, hesitant, anxiety-prone person withdraws, and through him resounds the music of the universe; like the basin of a fountain he becomes at once instrument and ear". In 1935, critic Hans-Rudolf Müller argued that Rilke could be seen as

10656-560: The power of giving". Later, during World War I, he would lament that "the world has fallen into the hands of men". In the face of death, life and love are not cheap and meaningless, and Rilke asserted that great lovers are able to recognize all three (life, love, and death) as part of a unity. In a 1923 letter to Nanny von Escher, Rilke confided: Two inmost experiences were decisive for their [i.e., The Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies ] production: The resolve that grew up more and more in my spirit to hold life open toward death, and on

10767-509: The principles of Nazism. Throughout the Duino Elegies , Rilke explored themes of "the limitations and insufficiency of the human condition and fractured human consciousness ... mankind's loneliness, the perfection of the angels, life and death, love and lovers, and the task of the poet". Philosopher Martin Heidegger remarked that "the long way leading to the poetry is itself one that inquires poetically", and that Rilke "comes to realize

10878-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation

10989-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,

11100-567: The symbolism of angels and salvation , but in a manner atypical of Christian interpretations. Rilke begins the first elegy in an invocation of philosophical despair, asking: "Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?" ( Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? ) and later declares that "each single angel is terrifying" ( Jeder Engel ist schrecklich ). While labelling of these poems as "elegies" would typically imply melancholy and lamentation , many passages are marked by their positive energy. Together,

11211-518: The task of the intellectual in a post-war world would be to render the world right, preparing people for those gentle transformations that lead to a more serene future. He envisioned the Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus as part of his contribution. The earliest published translation of the Duino Elegies was by Edward and Vita Sackville-West . It was published in 1931 by Hogarth Press in England, and titled Duineser Elegien: Elegies from

11322-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in

11433-525: The war ended. With a sudden, renewed burst of frantic writing which he described as a "boundless storm, a hurricane of the spirit"—he completed the collection in February 1922 while staying at Château de Muzot in Veyras , Switzerland. After their publication in 1923, the Duino Elegies were soon recognized as his most important work. The Duino Elegies are intensely religious, mystical poems that employ

11544-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

11655-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

11766-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of

11877-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially

11988-434: Was concerned with the experience of existential angst in trying to come to terms with the coexistence of the spiritual and earthly. He portrayed human beings as alone in a universe where God is abstract and possibly non-existent, "where memory and patterns of intuition raise the sensitive consciousness to a realization of solitude". Rilke depicted the alternative, a spiritually fulfilling possibility beyond human limitations, in

12099-477: Was conquered by Rodrigo Ponce de León, Duke of Cádiz after a brief siege. Subsequently, most of the city's old edifices were renewed or adapted to Christian roles, while numerous others were built in newly created quarters such as Mercadillo and San Francisco. The Plaza de Toros de Ronda was founded in the town in 1572. The Spanish Inquisition affected the Muslims living in Spain greatly. Shortly after 1492, when

12210-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which

12321-489: Was published by Insel-Verlag in Leipzig in 1923. Prominent critics praised the work and compared its merits to the works of Hölderlin and Goethe . During the 1920s, many of the younger generation of poets and writers did not like Duino Elegies because of the poems' obscure symbols and philosophy. The poet Albrecht Schaeffer  [ de ] , who is associated with the literary circle of Stefan George , dismissed

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