APOCALYPTIC CRISIS IN NIKOLAUS LENAU'S EPIC POEM "DIE ALBIGENSER"

Abstract

Nikolaus Lenau’s (1802–1850) Die Albigenser (1842) is one of the most important German-language political poems. The Albigensiansis a religious epic poem dealing with the history of the Middle Ages. The culmination of this period comes in the crisis of the Crusades and the persecution of heretics. In the research to date, Lenau's Albigensians have been portrayed as those devoted to the worship of the spirit. In its rejection of the physical, this dualistic heresy had incalculable social consequences. One of these consequences was the overthrow of an established order, which Lenau himself shows as unjust in his epic poem. The rites of the Albigensians are not only religious but primarily political acts. The defense and explanation of the Albigensian doctrine represents a rebellion against the Catholic Church of the time, seen as morally degenerate and in the service of a detested monarchical power. The Cathars and their fate allow Lenau to express his own revolt aptly. In the famous final verses, the revolutionary line is drawn from the Albigensians through Hus and Luther to the "stormers of the Bastille, and so on". Thus, the political accusation points beyond the historical events of the crisis into one's own present and even into the future (Deutsche Dichter 430–431). In this paper, Lenau is shown to transcend the religious, political, and social planes to form a commonly accepted universal idea. This article will address the idea that Lenau describes a time of crisis, to emphasize that with crises of this and/or a similar kind, a general upheaval of society and culture arises. The helplessness, defenselessness, and isolation of a group and/or an individual leads to a general dependency. Lenau depicts such a lack of freedom apocalyptically. The reaction to the existing reality and the consequence of crisis is the state of inner and outer dependence of the individual and the group, which is what first leads to the realization that independence and progress are in danger, which then leads to an apocalyptic vision of the future. Lenau's Albigensian poetry belongs to the tradition of German apocalyptic literature. And not only that, but in his epic poem the ideas are also represented that will only appear later in contemporary literature.