Justinus Kerner - Cultural References

Cultural References

• The poet Thomas Medwin stayed with him during 1848 to 1849 and later wrote a poem in his honour, To Justinus Kerner: With a Painted Wreath of Bay-Leaves, published in London in 1854.
• The grape variety Kerner, bred in 1929, was named in his honour.
• Søren Kierkegaard wrote in his journal on Kerner:
  • “I cannot help being amazed that Justinus Kerner (in his Dichtungen) is able to interpret so conciliatingly the phenomenon which has always shocked me since my very first experience of it — that someone says just exactly what I say. To me the phenomenon seemed to be the most confusing, almost Punch-and-Judy, disorder: the one would begin a sentence which the other would finish, and no one could be sure who was speaking.” July 11, 1837
  • “Justinus Kerner has interested me so much just now because, although he is far more gifted, I see in him the same artistic barrenness I see in myself. But I also see how something can be done even though essential continuity is lacking and can be fulfilled only by continuity of mood, of which every single little idea is a blossom, a kind of novelistic aphorism, a plastic study. While his own Dichtungen are full of excellent imaginative ideas, his reports aus dem Nachtgebiete der Natur are so dry that we could almost take that to be indirect proof of their truth.” July 13, 1837