Mignon

By Antonia Antoniazzo

Item Number: NX.BM319298

Goethe's Mignon Lieder are among the poems most frequently set to music. "Know'st thou the land?" alone must have been set to music at least 30 times. Composers as diverse as Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Hugo Wolf and even Alban Berg have all composed Mignon-Lieder. Mignon is one of the few tragic characters in world literature that is actually a child. Mignon is an asexual nevertheless erotically charged Lolita type who exhibits both male and female traits. This is the reason why Goethe chose the - incorrect - male form of "Mignon" for her name instead of the correct "Mignonne". Mignon has never overcome her abduction and the removal from Italy, which explains why yearning for the south, homesickness and a longing to go back to Italy are central to her character. Traumatized during childhood, scored and abandoned by all, even by Wilhelm Meister, she literally dies of a broken heart. Mignon's strange and somber fate has gripped readers for two centuries. But even more important to some were the four poems that Mignon recites - or rather sings - in the course of the novel. These four poems that do not bear title sin the novel which is why their first line is usually substituted for the title are: "Know'st thou the land?", "You neve rlong'd and lov'd", "O, ask me not to speak, I pray thee!", and "Such let me seem till such I be.".

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