In the Blue Distance (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Leonie Sachs
- First Published: 1957
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Europe or Europeans, 1940’s, World War II, Jews or Jewish life, War, Death or dying, Trees, Life and death, Holocaust, Jewish, Concentration camps
The Poem
“In the Blue Distance” is a haunting meditative lyric. Its intense images are presented in free verse. Like most of Nelly Sachs’s painfully beautiful poems, it is a variation on her basic theme, the Holocaust. This poem searches for a way to go on afterward, reflecting the theme of the book’s title, translated as “and no one knows how to go on.” The poem’s travelers look toward “the blue distance” where “longing is distilled” or where one can recognize and find deliverance from longing. Exactly what one longs for (peace, forgiveness, love, death?)...
[The entire page is 1639 words long]
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