ABSTRACT
Ballads written by Goethe and other poets of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries are normally identified as the Kunstballade. The ballad is rich in assonance and alliteration and the end-rhyme and repetitive structures in the poem add a further musicality to the verse. Franz Schubert's musical interpretation relates perfectly to the impersonal tone of Goethe's ballad. Johann Gottfried von Herder's translation of the original ballad, which was Goethe's immediate source, contracts several of the stanzas and employs the word Erlkonig in place of the original Ellenkonig. Goethe adopts these changes along with Herder's basic rhythm of narrative couplets with four stresses per line. The inspiration for 'Der Schatzgraber' was drawn from an illustration that Goethe came across while reading Francesco Petrarch's Testament. The inspiration for Goethe's ballad was drawn from an ancient Indian legend, which highlights the themes of transfiguration and redemption. In Goethe's ballad, the god dies and rises again from the funeral pyre to meet the beloved.
