Bear Dancing, Salome Dancing: about "Atta Troll", de Heinrich Heine

Abstract

This paper proposes an investigation into the language of the satiric poem "Atta Troll - ein Sommernachtstraum" (Atta Troll - sonho de uma noite de verão), composed by Heinrich Heine in 1841. Two deeply woven aspects stand out in the poem and motivate this literary research: first the poet’s requirement, which runs throughout the lengthy poem as a Leitmotiv, asking for an art without moral, religious or political influences, based on its own laws, emerging from the notion of beauty, and whose reasons are inherent in themselves. The second perspective that the poem reveals is the metaphoric relationship of poetry and dance, the art form in its various manifestations both formal and informal, which are observed with strict scrutiny throughout the poem. From both aspects, taken from translated parts in Portuguese, the paper indicates important affinities of this literature that lean towards both romanticism and the transition to modernity, and whose transformations it points at, with respect to aesthetics and the role of the poet