Gingo biloba
"Gingo biloba" (later: "Ginkgo biloba") is a poem written by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The poem was published in his work West–östlicher Divan (West–Eastern Divan), first published in 1819. Goethe used "Gingo" instead of "Ginkgo" in the first version to avoid the hard sound of the letter "k".
Goethe sent Marianne von Willemer (1784–1860), the wife of the Frankfurt banker Johann Jakob von Willemer (1760–1838), a ginkgo leaf as a symbol of friendship and on September 15, 1815, he read his draft of the poem to her and friends. On September 23, 1815, he saw Marianne for the last time. Then he showed her the Ginkgo tree in the garden of Heidelberg Castle from which he took the two leaves pasted onto the poem. After that he wrote the poem and sent it to Marianne on September 27, 1815. Directly across from the Ginkgo tree stands the Goethe memorial tablet. The poem was published later in the "Book of Suleika" in West–östlicher Diwan.
Dieses Baums Blatt, der von Osten | In my garden's care and favour |
The letter containing this poem with which Goethe included two Ginkgo leaves with two distinct lobes can be viewed in the Goethe Museum in Düsseldorf. The Ginkgo (planted in 1795) that Goethe led Marianne von Willemer to in September 1815 is no longer standing today. After 1928 the Ginkgo tree in the castle garden was labelled as "the same tree that inspired Goethe to create his fine poem". The tree was probably still standing in 1936. A Ginkgo-Museum [de] is located in Weimar.[2]
References
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- Bibliography
- Cultural depictions
- Epiphanias
- Erlkönig
- Die erste Walpurgisnacht
- Ganymed
- Gesang der Geister über den Wassern
- Gingo biloba
- Harzreise im Winter
- Heidenröslein
- Hermann and Dorothea
- Der König in Thule
- Marienbad Elegy
- Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
- Prometheus
- Roman Elegies
- The Sorcerer's Apprentice
- Welcome and Farewell
- Wanderer's Nightsong
- West–östlicher Divan
- Xenien
- Der Bürgergeneral
- Clavigo
- Faust
- Egmont
- Erwin und Elmire
- Götz von Berlichingen
- Iphigenia in Tauris
- The Magic Flute Part Two (libretto fragment)
- The Natural Daughter
- Stella
- Torquato Tasso
- Christine Vulpius (wife)
- Catharina Elisabeth Goethe (mother)
- Goethean science
- Weimar Classicism
- Goethe-Institut
- Goethe House (Weimar)
- Goethe House (Frankfurt)
- Goethe-Gesellschaft
- Goethe Monument (Berlin)
- Goethe–Schiller Monument (Weimar)
- Goethe–Schiller Monument (Milwaukee)
- Goethe Prize
- Goethe Society of North America
- Goetheanum
- Goethe in the Roman Campagna (1787 painting)
- Goethe at the Window (1786/7 painting)
- Lotte in Weimar (1939 Thomas Mann novel)
- Lotte in Weimar (1975 film)
- A Man in Love (novel)
- Young Goethe in Love (2010 film)
- Pied Piper of Hamelin