Blue Flower
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The Blue Flower (German: Blaue Blume) is a central symbol of Romanticism. It stands for desire, love, and the metaphysical striving for the infinite and unreachable.
Local blue-blooming flowers such as the Chicory or Cornflower are often seen as parallels to the "Blue Flower."
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[edit] Origins
German author Novalis first used the symbol in his unfinished novel of formation, entitled Heinrich von Ofterdingen. After contemplating a meeting with a stranger, the young Heinrich von Ofterdingen dreams about blue flowers which call to him and absorb his attention.
The Japanese translation of the novel was entitled aoi hana (青い花), meaning "bluish-green flower," which directly connected to the natural motif.
[edit] Use of the symbol
[edit] Other poets
Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff wrote a poem called "Die blaue Blume" (The blue flower). Adelbert von Chamisso saw the core of Romanticism in the motif, and Goethe searched for the "Urpflanze" or "original plant" in Italy, which in some interpretations could refer to the blue flower.
English writer Penelope Fitzgerald's novel 'The Blue Flower' is based on Novalis's early life.
"Blue Flowers" is also a song by the alternative MC, Kool Keith (AKA Dr. Octagon), on his critically acclaimed 1996 album, Dr. Octagonecologyst. The exact meaning of the song is unknown, as it is very cryptic, poetic, and spacey.
Manga artist and author Takako Shimura's manga series "Aoi Hana" (English title "Sweet Blue Flowers") is about idealistic, Romantic-style affection between female high school students.
[edit] Wandervogel movement
In 1960 Werner Helwig published the book "The Blue Flower of the Wandervogel" (Die blaue Blume des Wandervogels) a history of the youth movement. Within the movement, a number of folk songs used the motif.
[edit] The German student movement of the sixties
In Berlin in 1968, one slogan of the German student movement stated "Schlagt die Germanistik tot, färbt die blaue Blume rot!" ("Strike Germanistics dead, color the blue flower red!") The discipline of Germanistics was targeted as a sclerotic field, not suited to the needs of the people of the present.
[edit] Movies: "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me"
In the movie follow-up to David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks, entitled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, FBI agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley, while meeting with Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole, are given information about their upcoming task via a woman named Lil, wearing specific clothes and behaving in a specific way, code for specifics of their mission. For example, as Chet explains to Sam afterward, her sour expression means trouble with local law enforcement, and her tailored dress means drugs are involved. On her lapel is a tiny, artificial blue rose, clearly symbolic of something; but when Sam asks, Chet simply replies, "But I can't tell you about that."
Though symbolism in Lynch's work is notoriously evasive, given the context of the mission, the blue rose might symbolize a certain "weirdness" or the involvement of supernatural forces (which is indeed the case for Chet and Sam's mission, ultimately involving murder, strange disappearances, evil spirits, otherworldly settings, and so on). Thus, consistent with some of its other use, the blue rose, or blue flower, symbolizes infinite, unknown, metaphysical forces, beyond human comprehension.
[edit] References
- Werner Helwig: Die Blaue Blume des Wandervogels. Deutscher Spurbuchverlag, 1998. ISBN 3-88778-208-9
