Title: Reconstruction of German Folk Poetry and the Function of Poet: A Study of Goethe’s Ballads

Abstract: In the second half of the 18th century, there was a wave of retracing ancient Germanic traditions in German literature, intending to revitalize German literature. Under this circumstance, Goethe used native German folktales as the literary material for his ballads and rediscovered the mythological images of the ancient Germanic folktales, so as to nourish German national identity and convey the national spirit of the new age. On the one hand, Goethe gave new life to the declining Germanic mythological images and presented his religious views in poetic form; on the other hand, he emphasized the poet’s function as a connection medium linking legend and fairy tale, humanity and divinity, citizenship and morality.

Keywords: Goethe, ballad, German folk poetry, the function of poet

Author: Yiling Duan, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Foreign Languages, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.