Home Religion, Bible & Theology Prophet, Gottesthron, steinernes Menschenherz, Totenfeld und Quelle des Lebens – Aspekte der Rezeption des Ezechielbuches
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Prophet, Gottesthron, steinernes Menschenherz, Totenfeld und Quelle des Lebens – Aspekte der Rezeption des Ezechielbuches

  • Karin Schöpflin
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Das Buch Ezechiel
This chapter is in the book Das Buch Ezechiel

Abstract

The article offers some examples of adoptions of Ezekielian material in literature and painting. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, gives an account of a visionary meeting and dialogue with Isaiah and Ezekiel in order to illustrate Blake’s conviction that both prophets and poets are divinely inspired. In the second volume of his tetralogy Joseph und seine Brüder, Thomas Mann includes young Joseph’s dream of meeting God on his throne in heaven, who appoints Joseph as his substitute. The passage is modelled on Ez 1 and helps to characterize Mann’s protagonist. Both E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story Das steinerne Herz and Wilhelm Hauff’s tale Das kalte Herz are based on Ezekiel’s metaphor of the heart of stone (Ez 36:26). Wilfred Owen alludes pessimistically to the valley of bones (Ez 37) in his war sonnet The End. Painters, however, predominantly focus on the resurrection of the bones in that vision. There may be an architectural echo of the life-giving waters (Ez 47:1-12) in a Bavarian church.

Abstract

The article offers some examples of adoptions of Ezekielian material in literature and painting. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, gives an account of a visionary meeting and dialogue with Isaiah and Ezekiel in order to illustrate Blake’s conviction that both prophets and poets are divinely inspired. In the second volume of his tetralogy Joseph und seine Brüder, Thomas Mann includes young Joseph’s dream of meeting God on his throne in heaven, who appoints Joseph as his substitute. The passage is modelled on Ez 1 and helps to characterize Mann’s protagonist. Both E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story Das steinerne Herz and Wilhelm Hauff’s tale Das kalte Herz are based on Ezekiel’s metaphor of the heart of stone (Ez 36:26). Wilfred Owen alludes pessimistically to the valley of bones (Ez 37) in his war sonnet The End. Painters, however, predominantly focus on the resurrection of the bones in that vision. There may be an architectural echo of the life-giving waters (Ez 47:1-12) in a Bavarian church.

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