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.

An extraordinary collection of poetry and prose from the master of German expressionism The first poem in Gottfried Benn's first book, Morgue (1912)—written in an hour, published in a week, and notorious ever after—with its scandalous closing image of an aster sewn into a corpse by a playful medical student, set Benn on the path to celebrity and notoriety. And indeed, mortality, flowers, and powerful aesthetic collisions typify much of his subsequent work. Over the decades, as Benn suffered the vicissitudes of fate (the death of his mother from cancer; the death of his first wife, Edith; his brief attempt to ingratiate himself with the Nazis, followed by their persecution of him; the suicide of his second wife, Herta), the harsh voice of the poems relented and mellowed. His later poetry—from which Impromptus is chiefly drawn, many of the poems translated into English for the first time—is deeply affecting: it reflects the routines and sorrows and meditations of an intelligent, pessimistic, and experienced man. Written in the low, unupholstered monologue of the poet talking to himself, these works are slender ribbons of speech on the naked edge of song and silence. With this collection of poems and essays—edited and translated by the award-winning poet Michael Hofmann—Benn, at long last, promises to attain the presence and importance in the English-speaking world that he so richly deserves.

This book is the first comprehensive study of Gottfried Benn's poetry to appear in English. It covers the entirety of Benn's verse, from his early Morgue cycle (1912) and Expressionist poems through to the «anthropological» poetry of his middle period to the «postmodern» Phase II work after the Second World War. Against the background of the poet's theoretical writings, this study, drawing upon the classic texts of Benn scholarship, analyzes in detail the major themes of his verse and its distinctive idiom. In particular, this work focuses on Gottfried Benn's extended process of rhetorical self-fashioning, his use of classical iconography, color motifs and chiffres, his often confusing historical semantics, the seemingly self-constituting «absolute» poem, and the colloquial idiom of his late verse. The book also engages with the multiplicity of voices in Benn's work and their varied textual forms, the hermeneutically variable positions of speech that they articulate and the often contradictory notion of selfhood to which they give rise.

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.

Gottfried Benn ranks among the most significant German poets of the twentieth century. His early work, with its shockingly graphic depictions of human suffering and degradation, was associated with the Expressionist movement; the overriding theme of his later work was the isolation and fragmentation of the human being adrift in a nihilistic world. David Paisey here presents two selections, of verse and prose respectively, from Benn's large oeuvre, ordered chronologically to enable readers to perceive the developments of Benn's art and thought. The original German text of the poems is also included. In an important biographical introduction, Paisey tackles the difficult question of Benn's compliance with the Nazi regime and its impact on his life and work.

Octavio Paz launches a far-ranging excursion into the "incestuous and tempestuous" relations between modern poetry and the modern epoch. From the perspective of a Spanish-American and a poet, he explores the opposite meanings that the word "modern" has held for poets and philosophers, artists, and scientists. Tracing the beginnings of the modern poetry movement to the pre-Romantics, Paz outlines its course as a contradictory dialogue between the poetry of the Romance and Germanic languages. He discusses at length the unique character of Anglo-American "modernism" within the avant-garde movement, and especially vis- -vis French and Spanish-American poetry. Finally he offers a critique of our era's attitude toward the concept of time, affirming that we are at the "twilight of the idea of the future." He proposes that we are living at the end of the avant-garde, the end of that vision of the world and of art born with the first Romantics.

New essays examining the complex period of rich artistic ferment that was German literary Expressionism.

Following the success of their anthology Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, father-and-son team Anthony and Ben Holden, working with Amnesty International, have asked the same revealing question of 100 remarkable women. What poem has moved you to tears? The poems chosen range from the eighth century to today, from Rumi and Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, W.H. Auden to Carol Ann Duffy, Pablo Neruda and Derek Walcott to Imtiaz Dharker and Warsan Shire. Their themes range from love and loss, through mortality and mystery, war and peace, to the beauty and variety of nature. From Yoko Ono to Judi Dench, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Elena Ferrante, Carol Ann Duffy to Kaui Hart Hemmings, and Joan Baez to Nikki Giovanni, this unique collection delivers private insights into the minds of women whose writing, acting, and thinking are admired around the world.