Wöör un Klaarheit. Lyrical multilingualism in Modern Low German literature

Abstract

Starting with Norbert Johannimloh, authors of Modern Low German poetry have increasingly begun to accompany their works with self-translations into High German since the 1960s. Initially, this was seen as an opportunity to open up regional-language poetry to a wider readership. However, it can be observed that the translations themselves soon became a component of linguistic artistic practice by encouraging a poetic examination of linguistic difference and its functionalisation in lyrical discourse. Thus, the self-translations are no longer to be understood merely as a strategy in the literary business and as supporting texts of the Low German poems, which could be safely neglected in anthological projects. Instead, Low German and High German texts merge on a textual and visual level to form a multilingual and polyphonic lyrical unit. This will be shown using the example of Waltrud Bruhn’s poem Mien Wöör – Meine Wörter ‘my words’ from the poetry collection Windlast from 1987. Beforehand, the types of Low German–High German poetry will be presented and an attempt will be made to categorise them within the spectrum of literary multilingualism.