Gottfried Benn's Static Poetry

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A01=Mark William Roche
aesthetic
aristotle
Author_Mark William Roche
Category=DC
Category=DSC
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
German studies
Meister Eckhart
nazi
power positivism
Reisen
seneca
stasis
Statische Gedichte
stillness
Trunkene Flut
University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures
Wer allein ist

Product details

  • ISBN 9781469656786
  • Weight: 200g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
  • Publication Date: 01 May 2020
  • Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
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This book consists of close readings of four poems illustrating Gottfried Benn's developing conception of stillness or stasis: Trunkene Flut (1927), Wer allein ist-- (1936), Statische Gedichte (1944), and Reisen (1950). Mark Roche pays particular attention to the interrelation of form and content, and he uncovers previously overlooked allusions to thinkers such as Aristotle, Seneca, and Meister Eckhart.

Benn's supposedly pure poetry of stasis is in reality an expression of opposition to nazi ideology, Roche argues, and should be viewed in the context of inner emigration. Nevertheless, Benn's opposition to nazism unwittingly rests on the same decisionistic foundation as the power positivism he deplores. Benn's well-intentioned critique of nazism is ultimately unsuccessful. The book concludes with a theoretical postscript that suggest ways in which intellectual history could be made productive for literary interpretation and provides arguments in favor of an "aesthetic" analysis attentive to both formal structures and philosophical coherence.

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