Heinrich Heine With Martin Luther\'s

Heinrich Heine

With Martin Luther's Bible entitled Die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch (Wittenberg, 1534), German as a language begins to enter the conscience of a nation and to be used more and more as the main mean of communication by the people in that geographic part of Europe. More than the propagation of German language, Luther is also a creator of literary German and the founder of the literary current in Germany.

Considering Heinrich Heine's work "Religion and Philosophy," this paper will aim to show that Luther unleashed not only a true religious revolution in Germany, but that this was corroborated with and triggered in itself a literary revolution. The new religion that Luther promoted in Germany had one substantial literary characteristic: it was German and in German, which meant that the Bible and service needed to be in German. This was perhaps the foremost contribution Luther made to German literature and literary language, marking the beginning of literary manifestations in German language.

Heine pointed out Luther's contribution in the following words: "he gave us not only freedom of movement, but also the means of movement; to the spirit he gave a body; to the thought he gave words." According to Heine, Luther's role projected itself across several coordinates. First of all, he gave freedom of movement, which in fact is a romantic paradigm here for freedom of belief and religious freedom. Indeed, one can see this freedom of movement as a movement of the spirit and of the mind outside the conventions imposed by the Catholic Church. This is also a freedom of movement within religious dogma, with a substantially simpler service that Luther introduced in his attempt to actually bring people closer to religion and to God. Further more, this was an also a movement of the individual in himself and in his own relationship with the Divinity and the world.

However, this could not be done unless the word of God, the Bible, could be brought close to the ordinary people and to their understanding. This could only be done if the people would be able to understand the underlying message and this could only be done if the Bible was translated into German, the language that all the inhabitants regularly spoke. With the translation of the Bible into German, Luther "created the German language."

Heine is very keen to express this in the most plastic of ideas, showing that Luther's translation took the Bible from a language that no longer existed (Hebrew) and into a language that was not yet created (German). As an initial creator of the language, Luther chose his translator and committed him to his work. The Bible had so far not been existent in German, being mostly spread in Latin, a necessity in the Catholic world. What Luther does is bring it to "the poorest" people.

Heine's belief is that Luther's revolution is religious, political and literary and that all these spheres are interrelated and correlated with each other. First of all, the revolution is obviously religious, because Luther denies the Catholic creed and perceptions and introduces his own Lutheran ones, accepted by a widespread population in Germany.

On the other hand, Luther's revolution is obviously political, with the religious turnaround implying war with the Papacy and Catholicism, backed by some of the most important nations in Europe at that time. It is also a political revolution because it leads to a new rearrangement of political matters in Europe and obviously paves the way for the Thirty Years War in the 17th century.

Finally, it is a revolution of expression and a literary revolution, in its very basic sense of breaking with the old and promoting the new. According to Heine's words, Luther's literary is a "rejuvenation for our language," giving people with no pre-required education the chance to express themselves, to spread ideas and to be understood by the other members of their society.

This leads to a very important connection: the connection between liberty and the power of speech, as expressed in Heine's book, which, additionally, will be biblical. There are several things worth examining in this part. First of all, through Luther's essential contribution in translating the Bible into German, gives the word of God to ordinary Germans. However, even more than this, he empowers them to express themselves as well. According to Heine, this is the moment of rejuvenation for German language, which is literally not only the rebirth of the language itself, but of the language as a means of expression, as a means of freedom of speech. Finally, this is the freedom of speech in the ancient biblical sense of the word, the word as more than a simple means of expression, the word as the ultimate conscience of the German people. This is why Luther's literary role is also essential in creating the German national identity and of sustaining it throughout the centuries to follow.

By giving it the gluing substance it needed, Luther is able to present Germany to Europe as a unified nation, despite its actual political and geographical fragmentation. This is why the literary revolution also translates into a political revolution, with the language as the element of connection between the so many different small states on the German territory.

Certainly, the language and linguistic aspect is just one part of the literary revolution that Luther proposes. The other part comes from the numerous poems, which Heine mentions in his book and which "in battle and in trouble blossomed forth from his heart." His poems and songs are also a form of freedom of speech manifestation, but, even more than that, a form of rallying the Germans into the potential form of a nation, joint together by a common language.

It is worthy of mention the fact that Heine points out that "all expressions and idioms to be found in the Lutheran Bible are German. The writer must go on using them...." As such, Luther does not only invent literary German and German language in use as it is, but he also leaves a significantly rich legacy in terms of the German vocabulary and its use over the next centuries. He provides part of the literary vocabulary that the writers in the future must continue to use in their works.

Luther's literary revolution and language is also aimed at making philosophical points by emphasizing the need to break away from the old and line up with the new. In Heine's words, "its material is the conflict between the interests and views of the Reformation and the old order of things," which means that Luther's translation is actually a milestone in breaking with the philosophical past as well and in moving into a new phase of things.