SOURCE: "The Play Element in the Poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler," in The German Quarterly, Vol. XLIII, September, 1970, pp. 571-76.

In the following essay, Blumenthal discusses Lasker-Schüler's use of childhood and play imagery in her love poetry.

The poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler is distinguished by its rich and deceptively simple imagery and by the fact that almost all of it consists of love poems. Her poetic acts of love are at once ritual, entertainment, artistry, riddle-making, doctrine, persuasion, sorcery, soothsaying, prophecy, and competition: in short—play. Gottfried Benn knew this and dedicated his volume of verse, Söhne, to her playfully: "Ich grüsse Else Lasker-Schuler: ziellose Hand aus Spiel und Blut." The poetess was herself aware of the central position which play occupies in her work and frequently defined her poetic mission in terms of it: "Spielen ist alles," she states simply, for "die Spielsachen...