Hans Arp's critics, as Günther Rimbach points out¹, fall into two main factions: those who regard his poems as the oracular utterances of an inscrutable mystic; and those—mainly academics—who damn him with faint praise as a Spieler juggling with words and phrases bereft of all meaning. Both sides, then, agree that Arp's poetry is beyond analysis. But to be what Marcel Jean calls one of the best German and French poets of the century², and yet almost totally meaningless, is a curious distinction indeed.

The issue of meaning in Arp's poetry is a complex one, and is best attacked from one specific angle. The most appropriate is Arp's habit of modifying and re-writing his poems, which, it is argued, indicates that he is arbitrarily substituting one kind of meaninglessness for another. The ‘Schneethlehem’ quartet from the Pyramidenrock illustrates this phenomenon in miniature.

‘Schneethlehem’ consists of four poems of two stanzas each, first published in 1924, and subsequently revised in Wortträume und schwarze Sterne (1953). This is the earlier version of ‘Schneethlehem 3’:

Das Schnee- und Hagelwittchen fällt
wie Fallsucht und von Fall zu Fall.
Es fällt weil es gefällig ist
und jedesmal mit lautem Knall.
Es fällt in seinen Todesfall
mit kleinen Lichtern um den Saum.
Der Automat schreit nur uhu.
Die Todesclaque rührt sich kaum.

(Gesammelte Gedichte 1 [hereafter abbreviated as GD1], p. 88³.)

The second stanza was re-written:

Es fällt in seinen Todesfall
das Haar mit Fallobst dekoriert.
Den Fallschirm hat es aufgespannt.
Die Todesclaque applaudiert.

Reinhard Döhl, in his chapter on ‘Schneethlehem’, asks how it is possible to attempt a serious interpretation of this poem:

Diese Ersetzung, die wörtliche Auflösung des Schnee- ins Hagelwittchen, die Tatsache, daβ Arp nach 1945 wiederholt die ‘Schnurrmilch’-Gedichte ebenfalls unter die Überschrift ‘Schneethlehem’ gestellt hat, und die jeweiligen, sinngemäβ nicht auflösbaren Kontexte führen jeden Interpretationsversuch alsbald ad absurdum⁴.

Before examining this contention, it would be wise to consult Arp's own views on the nature and permanence of a work of art he has created. The processes which lead to its coming into being in the first place are those of accretion rather than logical progression:

Auch in meiner Bildnerei kommen die Anregungen oder Entschlüsse oft aus einem kleinen Anstoβ. Ich bin zum Beispiel gar nicht unglücklich, daβ hin und wieder eine meiner Skulpturen zerbricht. Unter diesen Bruchstücken sind oft erstaunliche Gebilde, die lebendiger sind als diejenigen, welche durch tagelanges Hobeln an meinem Gipsmodell entstanden waren⁵.

Chance and experiment are the important factors in his modus operandi; and he develops his “Bruchstücke” as follows:

Ein kleines Bruchstück einer meiner Plastiken, an der mich eine Rundung, ein Gegensatz reizt, ist oft der Keim einer neuen Plastik. Ich verstärke die Rundung oder den Gegensatz. Neue Formen sind dadurch bedingt. Unter den neuen Formen wachsen zwei besonders stark. Ich lasse diese zwei weiterwachsen, bis die ursprünglichen Formen nebensächlich und beinahe ausdruckslos geworden sind. Schlieβlich unterdrücke ich eine der nebensächlichen ausdruckslosen, damit die übrigen wieder sichtbarer werden. Die Arbeit an einer Plastik dauert oft Monate, Jahre. Ich arbeite an ihr, bis hinreichend von meinem Leben in diesen Körper geflossen ist⁶.

The fragments of materials in his sculptures correspond to fragments of language in his poems.

Arp has always stressed his closeness to nature, and he allows the creation of a work of art to mirror the pattern of natural selection: a battle for ascendancy is fought out until one ‘species’ gains a viable independence. So it would not be unreasonable to assume that Arp allowed ‘Schneethlehem 3’ to grow to what seemed to him its fullest extent for the Pyramidenrock, and that later, in changed circumstances, when reexamining it in preparation for Wortträume und schwarze Sterne, he became dissatisfied with it, permitted the secondary and unexpressive part of the poem to fade, and explored further its stronger elements until he was again satisfied.

If this knowledge is applied to the two alternative second stanzas before us, they become slightly less mystifying.

The first version takes up the theme of falling, which dominates the opening stanza, but only in the first line. The rest of the stanza then seems to lose the thread and tail away to nothing. There is just one sign of the continuity of the poem persisting: the second line—“Mit kleinen Lichtern um den Saum”—qualifies the first in the same kind of way that the second line of the first stanza does its preceding line. But Arp seems to have got himself into an impasse with the awkward rhyming-word ‘Saum’.

What happens, then, in the second version? Arp reinforces the falling theme by transplanting three new lines into the stanza; retaining the qualifying rôle of the second line, but increasing the bond with the first stanza by means of ‘Fallobst’, which parallels ‘Fallsucht’; making the third line continue to describe the actions of the falling ‘Schnee -und Hagelwittchen’; and turning the fourth line only over to a terse comment from outside the situation.

Clearly there is a guiding human consciousness at work here, seeking to ‘improve’ the poem, taking up some fragments, and emphasising them, letting others atrophy because they are less pertinent to the context.

Whether or not this is a good poem, it certainly is not ‘nonsense’. It may not possess a clear narrative thread, but at least it demonstrably develops into a poem preoccupied with the theme of falling. And if the question is asked ‘Who or what might be falling?’ the poem actually begins to make some sense.

The answer is that both ‘Schneewittchen’ and ‘Hagelwittchen’ are falling. Snow White is a fantasy character, one of the many figures from children's and folk lore that people Arp's poetry⁷. Hail White evokes icy hailstones thudding down in a severe storm. So there are two kinds of contradiction here: on the one hand, between a living figure and an inanimate object; on the other, between the soft, friendly forces of nature (snow), and its uncontrolled outbursts of violence (hail). This polarity can be brought together in these terms: what can be controlled, understood and recognised as part of a meaningful universe has become inextricably entangled with that which can be neither comprehended nor mastered and threatens the harmony of the universe. It is precisely to this frightening insight that results from a ‘play’ on words which Arp refers in the oftenquoted passage from Wegweiser: “Der Miβbrauch der Unterlage (der Sprache) ahndete sich oft grausam, und es erging mir wie dem Zauberlehrling in Goethes Gedicht⁸.”

The chance meeting of Snow White and Hail White brings into focus an expression of Arp's feelings: in the first version, the idea faded before the end of the poem; in the second, the revised stanza reinforces its impact, and heightens the sense of impending doom: Snow / Hail White is falling to her / its death, hair decked with rotten, discarded fruit; and death applauds because it knows the defensive action of opening the parachute is in vain. Thus Arp has created a lament for the loss of nature and beauty in a world dominated by the machine.

In ‘Schneethlehem 1’ a similar developmental pattern can be seen.

Herr Je das Nichts ist bodenlos.
Frau Je das Nichts ist unmöbliert.
Da nützt euch auch kein Kreuzbesteck
mit dem ihr fleiβig exerziert.
Herr Je der Tisch ist wasserweich.
Frau Je beim ersten Fingerzeig
freβ ich die Wurst mit Nebenwurst
in einem roten Flammenteig.

(GD1, p. 86.)

In this first version, the poem begins by taking ‘Herr Jesus’ and devaluing, depersonalising the expression to the colloquial ‘Herr Je’, and inventing a ‘Frau Je’ to keep him company; then it sets up the unhappy pair in the bottomless void of an unfurnished universe, and tells them that all their activities are as meaningless and vain as the universe itself. The second stanza does indeed continue the pattern initiated by the word ‘Kreuzbesteck’: we are presented with the tragi-comic spectacle of the hapless pair having their nourishment snatched from a non-existent table. (Non-existent, of course, because their world is unfurnished.) But the theme of the void is lost and the second stanza becomes trivial and irrelevant. So Arp changes it:

Herr Je Frau Je Frau Je Herr Je
gleich beiβt das Nichts euch in den Bauch
verschluckt euch samt dem Kreuzbesteck
und speit euch aus als Ruβ und Rauch.

He transforms the opening line into a more potent lament, and has the void itself devouring ‘Herr Je’ and ‘Frau Je’ and spewing them out in a black cloud.

Falling and the void: thus far ‘Schneethlehem’ has at least a consistent theme, and one is almost tempted to interpret the title of the quartet in the same terms, as the warmth of Bethlehem chilled by snow, or the true meaning of a word associated with new life blotted out by the commercialised snowflakes of The Season's Greetings.

Indeed, in the references to ‘Herr Je’ and the ‘Todesclaque’ there is a general preoccupation with lost religion and vanished links with the natural and spiritual world; and in this respect ‘Schneethlehem 2’ is the most explicit.

Charybdis bybdis Zwiebelbiβ
das Standbild geht im Kreis herum
das Heroldseuter in der Hand
und fällt von seinem Podium.
Die Schwindelschraube schraubt sich fest
und schraubt die Windsbraut an den Wind.
Es kracht der groβe Ehrenast
und tötet Jubelgreis und -kind.

(GD1, p. 87.)

Like the other two poems so far discussed, it begins with a familiar association that is broken down by a pun. Instead of having Scylla with Charybdis, we have ‘bybdis’ (in the second version, bybtis, the only subsequent alteration made except for a minor punctuation variation) and ‘Zwiebelbiβ’. The balance of razor-edged rocks and whirlpool is upset, reflecting the disharmony of the universe, and the remainder of the poem appropriately explores the resultant spinning round and dizziness. The statue—a figure of a God, perhaps—with its udder, symbol of nourishment and a bond with man's origins, which was to proclaim a new Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, spirals ignominiously to the ground. Again the falling theme. This spinning sets off a whirlwind, bringing down a great tree which kills young and old formerly close to and shielded by nature. Lurking in the background are strong echoes of the Christian tradition: the ‘Ehrenast’ could be the Cross; and the death of the child, particularly with the word ‘Herold’ in the previous stanza (which, bearing in mind Arp's adroitness with language, is not far from Herod), recalls the Slaughter of the Innocents.

At first sight, ‘Schneethlehem 4’ seems something of an odd man out.

In seinem Höcker wächst ein Ei.
Er grüβt mit seinem Zinnenhut
aus Elfenbein und Nymphenbein
und Ranken ranken ihm im Blut.
Bald ist er innen zugerankt
und nur das Ei ist froh und dick.
Er drückt sein Sitzfleisch in den Topf
und zieht an einem Legestrick.

(GD1, p. 89.)

It is certainly more flippant and less disciplined than the other three; but it too is concerned with the same problems. It opens like the others with a distorted association: two utterly contradictory objects are thrust together, a bump or boil, a sign of deformity, and an egg, a promise of new life. If the egg grows there, it will be malformed. And the rest of the body is indeed choked with a cancerous growth. The egg prospers; he withers, and lightheadedly flushes himself out of existence.

Far from intensifying the meaninglessness of ‘Schneethlehem’, then, the later versions intensify the thematic unity of the poems; in fact, they actually clarify them. The fact ‘Schneethlehem 2’ and ‘Schneethlehem 4’ were not changed at a later stage indicates simply that Arp felt that their first versions had already reached the limit of development. In many cases where he is not dealing with a strict form, poems subsequently modified by Arp are expanded in the process to render them more lucid, to exploit their potential to the full. Such is the case with ‘kaspar ist tot’ (GD1, pp. 25-28), ‘Von Zeichnungen aus der Kokoschka-Mappe’ (GD1, pp. 12-18), and ‘Weltwunder’ (GD1, pp. 47-53).

In the original version of this last work, Arp conveys, by means of ‘random’ extracts from newspapers, the strident din of a commercialised world dedicated to the accumulation of the greatest wealth by the least effort in the shortest possible time. The second version, superimposed on the first, probes beneath the surface to reveal the richness and magic of the world of nature and the imagination threatened by the dark clouds of galloping civilisation. Blackness, monsters and decay loom on all sides. The dawn-red dream-cloud is fragile and easily dispersed by the smog of the city. And what Arp has later written into this prose poem is already implicit in the first version, although by no means fully realised.

As a collection, the Pyramidenrock is not greatly admired; Alfred Liede, for example, expresses himself in favour of the ‘pure’ play of the Wolkenpumpe (1920), and against the ‘arch’ play of the Pyramidenrock: ‘Wer die zauberhafte Unsinnspoesie der Wolkenpumpe kennt, muβ sich mit Kopfschütteln vom Pyramidenrock abwenden⁹.’ But he notes with approval that this was merely an episode.

Liede may be right in preferring the Wolkenpumpe; but, as he regards all of Arp's poetry as nonsense, it is difficult to place much weight on his criteria of assessment in pronouncing one sort of nonsense superior to another.

His other charge against the Pyramidenrock is much more serious, and needs closer attention: apart from the fact that the Pyramidenrock poems were being written roughly at the same time as those of the preferred Wolkenpumpe¹⁰, and that they received subsequent attention by Arp long after the ‘episode’ was over, they can hardly be regarded as merely a passing phase either from the point of view of form or from that of content.

Although it is true that the Pyramidenrock is the only volume of Arp's poetry to be entirely in regular stanzas, most of which have a strict rhyming pattern, it has simply come about because Arp has gathered under one heading all the poems in which he experimented with these forms¹¹. And it could surely be argued that, as far as Liede's head-shaking is concerned, the sharp contrast between a controlled outward first appearance and a chaotic world depicted within is in itself an apt and valid poetic statement.

But regular forms are not just an episode; they occur elsewhere in his poetry, on each occasion for some special effect. In the Sophie poems (1943-1945), he expresses his desire to be reunited with her, to share once again in death the oneness with nature which she represented in his eyes¹², in these simple lines:

Nun bist du fortgegangen.
Was soll ich hier gehen und stehen.
Ich habe nur ein Verlangen.
Ich will dich wiedersehen(13).

And in Mondsand more than one poem breaks into rhyme, so to speak, at its close:

Der Mond ist eine Blume,
sie wächst in uns hinein.
Zu welchem Heiligtume
macht sie den armen Schrein(14).

The regular form conveys the moon's ability, through nature, to bridge the gulf between man and the world of the spirit.

‘Schneethlehem’ and the Pyramidenrock are certainly no episode from the point of view of content, either: the void and falling both echo throughout Arp's poetry right up to the last collection, the Logbuch des Traumkapitäns, in which to jump over the railings of the prison-house of life becomes a leap into the void, an act of faith that God still exists:

Wer über das Geländer springt
stürzt in das Bodenlose(15).

So too do the themes of new life and decay:

auβen an den schwammigen lerchen hängt der steinige himmel
aus welchem fallen die dotter und erdbälle.

(GD1, p. 24.)

from Der vogel selbdritt, and the ‘œufs de grenouilles¹⁶’ from the Unpublished Poems 1961-1964.

Biblical references are of great significance, especially when used to convey the loss of God: ‘warum hast du uns verlassen’ (GD1, p. 26), from ‘kaspar ist tot’, echoes the Last Words; and, from ‘Schnurrmilch’, ‘Ein Glaube der den Berg versetzt’ becomes degraded in a later version to ‘Ein Komma das den Berg versetzt’ (GD1, p. 102). Particularly bitter is this line from Der vogel selbdritt: ‘als der wasserfall dreimal gekräht hatte, erblich seine tapete bis auf das blut und die matrosenmatrize zersprang’ (GD1, p. 31).

And above all Arp constantly bewails the loss of harmony, the crushing of nature by a civilisation that adulates reason and material progress, the banishment of true reason and sanity in a world gone mad:

Nein er will nicht auf einen grünen Zweig kommen.
Was ist für Geld feil?
Sind etwa himmlische Dinge und Wesen
für Geld zu haben?
Mit Geld kann man nur
zerbrechliche Ware kaufen.
…
Nein er will nicht auf einen grünen Zweig kommen.
Er will lieber unter einem himmelblauen Zweig träumen(17).

There are no ‘episodes’, then, in Arp's poetry: it grows according to its own natural laws; as he says in his essay ‘Konkrete Kunst’,

Wir wollen nicht die Natur nachahmen. Wir wollen nicht abbilden, wir wollen bilden. Wir wollen bilden, wie die Pflanze ihre Frucht bildet, und nicht abbilden. Wir wollen unmittelbar und nicht mittelbar bilden¹⁸.

The problems of existence in the contemporary world which he explores remain the same, only his approach constantly shifts to suit the ecology of the age. He may have mystical leanings and a delight in words for their own sake, but he is certainly no nonsense poet¹⁹. It is the world, argues Arp, that is mad, and he seeks to capture the last traces of beauty before they vanish for ever:

Die angebetete Maschine, die das Weltall und die Unendlichkeit demnächst auffressen soll, grauenhafter und geschäftiger Wahnsinn sind schuld daran, daβ der Mensch die Schönheit nicht mehr erkennt²⁰.

Notes

1. G. C. Rimbach, ‘Sense and non-sense in the poetry of Jean Hans Arp’, GQu, vol. XXVI (1963), 152.

2. See Marcel Jean's preface to Jean Arp, Jours effeuillés, Paris, (1966), p. 24.

3. GD1 = Hans Arp, Gesammelte Gedichte 1, Wiesbaden (1963).

4. R. Döhl, Das literarische Werk Hans Arps 1903-1930, Stuttgart (1967), p. 177.

5. Hans Arp in H. Domin, Doppelinterpretationen, Frankfurt a.M. & Bonn (1966), p. 283.

6. Hans Arp, Unsern täglichen Traum …, Zürich (1955), p. 82.

7. For example, the overtones of Aschenputtel in ‘Schüttle Dich Grüner schüttle Dich’ (GD1, p. 8); references to Rosenrot (Hans Arp, Sinnende Flammen, Zürich (1961), p. 49) and Rübezahl (GD1, p. 105); and the folk figure Hans Kaspar in ‘kaspar ist tot’ (GD1, pp. 25-27) (cf. L. W. Forster, ‘Un “Wackes” cosmique. Weh unser guter Kaspar ist tot’, Saisons d'Alsace, no. XXII (1967), 210).

8. Hans Arp, Wortträume und schwarze Sterne, Wiesbaden (1953), pp. 5-6.

9. A. Liede, Dichtung als Spiel (2 vol.), Berlin (1963), vol. I, p. 377.

10. Döhl, p. 174.

11. Arp also renders the second version of Der vogel selbdritt more uniform, to suggest his preference for a more tightly-knit collection. See Döhl, p. 212.

12. Unsern täglichen Traum …, p. 24.

13. Wortträume, p. 73.

14. Hans Arp, Mondsand, Pfullingen (1960), poem 4. (The volume is unpaginated.)

15. Hans Arp, Logbuch des Traumkapitäns, Zürich (1965), p. 40.

16. Jours effeuillés, p. 587.

17. Sinnende Flammen, p. 32.

18. Unsern täglichen Traum, p. 79.

19. Mme Arp herself reinforces this view. In a letter to me dated 3.7.68, she writes: ‘Je suis comme Mr. Forster et vous d'accord que les poèmes de Jean Arp ne sont pas des jeux de mots gratuits.’

20. Unsern täglichen Traum, p. 10.