(Wormerveer, 26 November 1864 – Sint-Joost-ten-Node, 15 September 1927).
Dutch poet and council communist. He was also a co-founder of the Social Democratic Party, which later became the CPN. He is best known for his epic-length poem Mei (1889). The opening line of this poem, ‘A new spring and a new sound’, has become a common saying.
Herman Gorter. Photo:wikipedia.org
First night of May and the soft-silvered moon frightens her semicircle in the blue.
Image- NASA. Meaning:The sentence describes the first night of May in a pictorial, almost mythical way: the moon casts only a semicircle of silver light into the dark blue vault of the sky. The verb “frightens” is remarkable and characteristic of Gorter — the moon’s ‘frightening’ is not fear in the ordinary sense, but rather a shiver of awe, the feeling of something fragile and magical that reveals only half of your light. It is the tension between presence and concealment, light and darkness — precisely the kind of ambiguous imagery with which Gorter described nature as animated. Gorter in brief: Herman Gorter had worked on his “Mei” in solitude for months. The great narrative poem numbers no fewer than 4,381 lines and was published in March 1889. The first line — “A new spring and a new sound” — has become very well known in Dutch literature. The line “The first night of May and the softly silvered moon frightens her semicircle in the blue” almost certainly originates from Herman Gorter’s “Mei” (1889), the great epic poem generally considered the pinnacle of the poetry of the Tachtigers. Not from David Gray (the British singer-songwriter), who worked in a completely different genre and language. The connection to Gorter’s “Mei” is strong: – The month of May is presented in the poem as a person, as the daughter of the moon and the sun. – Born of the mother moon and the sun, May arrives on a beach in the first song. Her dead sister April is carried away that night. – The poem is steeped in moon imagery and night scenes in May, exactly the atmosphere of the quote. – The annual relay recitation of the entire poem takes place on Ascension Day in Zutphen — perhaps not a coincidence that I live in Zutphen! However, it is fair to say that we have not found the ‘exact’ lines of verse in the available texts — the phrasing may be slightly paraphrased or taken from a modernized edition.
Door Pieter
Mensenmens, zoon, echtgenoot, vader, opa.
Spiritueel, echter niet religieus.
Ik hou van golf, wandelen, lezen en de natuur in veel opzichten.
Onderzoeker, nieuwsgierig, geen fan van de mainstream media (MSM).
