Eye Imagery in Else Lasker-Schuler

Abstract

In this poem, Mein stilles Lied, as elsewhere in her lyric work, the eye for Lasker-Schuler stands as a center of consciousness, a meeting place of the soul and the visible world, more manifest than the former, more self-aware than the latter. But in this particular context, unusual for her, the eye is universalized, so that the poetess experiences her being as the very focal point of time and, beyond that, as a transcendent radiation into the presence of God. The eye of the speaker, her awareness of the world, extends beyond vision to the visionary, a not uncommon metaphorical expansion. Although Else Lasker-Schiiler indeed saw the poet's role as one of revelation and an almost priestly calling to praise and lamentation, Mein stilles Lied is almost unique in the assertion of this claim.