The Germanism in the English language I chose for today’s is a term used in everyday-life but also in psychology. Sehnsucht (pronounce approximately: ‘zayne-zooh-t) describes a state of yearning for something. It doesn’t sound really happy, does it? Well, it isn’t, because it is kind of a hopeless yearning for something, somebody, some place, or sometime that one won’t receive, be with, or experience. And in the extremest of cases, it might lead to a pathological state of death wishes and even suicidal thoughts.
Sehnsucht has always been a human phenomenon. Therefore, we encounter the motif of it in all kinds of forms of art from the ancient times through today. There is Fernweh (pronounce: ‘fairn-way), the longing for leaving the well-known and to explore the world. And isn’t that something everybody of us experiences who likes to travel?! It doesn’t even have to be far away – just some place new. Its opposite is Heimweh (pronounce: ‘hime-way), the longing for home. People kept asking me whether I suffered from Heimweh for my mother country for some years after I arrived over here. My answer is still “no,” but I DO yearn to go back to Britain where I somehow always felt my completest. Nostalgia is the yearning for times in the past, even though they are usually idealized or sometimes haven’t even been experienced by the person in such a mood. Such as “longing” for Jane Austen’s times, which many think of as pretty and romantic as in the movies, forgetting most people’s hardships back then. In a way, these forms of Sehnsucht are usually accompanied by some bittersweet joy that makes them almost addictive.
The vanitas paintings of the 17th century bear witness to the pathological side of Sehnsucht – skulls were in still lives, urns were kept on mantlepieces, Goethe’s The Sorrow’s of Young Werther induced a number of suicides among young people who thought that unrequited love had to end in one’s death. The era of Romanticism in the 19th century and Jugendstil/Art Deco around the turn of the 20th century celebrated death wishes in dark-colored paintings, in poetry, and in song. Also, the 20th century touches on Sehnsucht as a form of forlornness, for example in this celebrated song by the German band Purple Schulz:
Basically, Sehnsucht describes the perception that a current state is imperfect and that a utopian one is desirable, no matter whether in the future or the past. It is a reflection of one’s status quo in comparison with a state of completion. Quite deep, isn’t it?
So, Sehnsucht is something that everybody will have felt on one level or another. Whether it is the wish to travel somewhere or to get home, the yearning for the presence of a person dead or alive, or the wish for a state of peace and calm, of mindfulness – we are all in a state of transience. And some of us might reach that place of fulfilment in their lifetime, and others might not. But everybody has been in that place.
