Who rides there so late through the night and wind?
–Goethe, Der Erlkönig
The forest plays an important role in German history and culture. They have long had a mythological identification with the forest that has only been strengthened over the centuries. Almost a third of Germany's total area is covered by forests. In the rise of Romanticism forests became a dominant theme in poetry, painting and music.
WALD
Waldeinsamkeit
Ludwig Tieck (1789 - 1853)
Waldeinsamkeit, [Forest solitude,
Die mich erfreut, which delights me,
So morgen wie heut As tomorrow as today
In ewger Zeit, In eternal time,
O wie mich freut. O how delights me
Waldeinsamkeit. forest solitude.]
Wald𐄁ein𐄁sam𐄁keit
The term "Waldeinsamkeit" has some meaning as a literary and religious motif: silence, solitude in the forest. It’s a compound word of German language made of ‘der Wald’ (forest) and ‘die Einsamkeit’ (loneliness). First seen in the poem of Ludwig Tieck in the XIX century and later in another homonymous work by Heinrich Heine. It found its way into American literature as untranslated Germanism, as in Ralph Waldo Emerson's (1803-1882) poem "Waldeinsamkeit" (1858).
