Germany Literature 3

Germany Literature Part III

Thus HP Piwitt (b. 1935) in Der Granatapfel (1986) provides a biography of D’Annunzio problematizing his risky fascination; Germany Fuchs (b. 1932) in Schinderhannes (1986) reconstructs the life of a German gentleman brigand, among other things never a murderer, a kind of “courteous Passator” guillotined by the French in Mainz in 1803; HM Enzensberger also returns to the biography with Requiem für eine romantische Frau (1988); D. Kühn (b. 1935) even proposes a trilogy between history and medieval legend with Ich Wolkenstein (1977), Der Parzival von Wolfram von Eschenbach (1986) and Neidhard aus dem Reuental (1988); H. Stern (b. 1922) in Mann aus Apulien (1986) reconstructs, in the singular form of a documented autobiography, the life of Frederick II of Swabia. More isolated are the voices of the aforementioned C. Geissler, who in the novel kamalatta (1988), subtitled, despite its size, a ” romantic fragment ” due to its shattered and deliberately nebulous form, traces the years of German lead looking for its springs; and by K. Theweleit, who in Orpheus und Eurydike (1988), the first of the four volumes planned to give substance to the Buch der Könige, takes up the old myth to theorize about literature.

The posthumous books, published with so much delay, by RD Brinkmann (1940-1975), champion of that ” angry ” literature, which followed between the 1960s and 1970s, but which by now, at least in fiction, it finds few fans and followers. Among young people, the only one who can be considered his heir in some way is L. Fels (b.1946), author of Heimatbilder (1985) and Rosen für Afrika (1987), in which the environment and language are those of transgressors and of the marginalized.

For the rest, among the youngest, still apocalyptic tones, with recourse to unusual expressive virtuosities, in S. Schütz (b. 1944; with the ponderous novel Medusa, 1986); existential problems in J. Walser (b. 1957; Die Unterwerfung, 1986); estrangement from provincial life in B. Burmeister (Anders oder Vom Aufenthalt in der Fremde, 1987); estrangement from provincial life itself under the yoke of real socialism in Herta Müller (b. 1940; Niederungen, 1984, trans. it., 1987; Der Mensch ist ein grosser Fasan auf der Welt, 1987); problems internal to literature itself in K. Modick (n. 1951, Weg war weg, 1988) and I. von Kieseritzky (n. 1944, Das Buch der Desaster, 1988); critically dictated or ideologically conditioned review of crucial years of recent German history in Germany Köpf (b.1948, Die Erbengemeinschaft, 1987), P.-J. Boock (b. 1951, Abgang, 1988) and R. Goetz (Kontrolliert, 1988); declared nihilism in M. Krüger (b. 1938; Wieso ich?, 1987); and they are all valid proofs, which however require confirmation.

The evidence provided at their debut by P. Süskind and Th. Becker appeared interesting. But Süskind, after the resounding success, actually more with audiences than critics, of his Das Parfum (1985, trans. It., 1985), a skilfully constructed and fluidly narrated historical novel, was immediately disappointed in the subsequent Die Taube (1987, trad. it., 1987); and Th. Becker, who in Die Bürgschaft (1985) was even able to make fun of the problems of the most pressing Berlin current affairs, in Die Nase (1987) he took up the same theme but without knowing how to fully rediscover the same happy tone.

Little new also in the theater, among other things more easily subjected, to the East, to checks and censorships, even totally preclusive, from which also the recovery in a classicistic key that precisely in the East for a certain stretch has characterized in particular precisely the theater, in the uncomfortable search for its own space, but not for the purpose of a comfortable escape but for a screened assumption of social responsibility.

According to DISEASESLEARNING.COM, this was the case, for example, of P. Hacks (b. 1928), one of the greats of the moment, who, however, more recently preferred not to perform or go on other roads. Alongside him at his origins, and then increasingly diversified, Heiner Müller (b.1929) proposes a paradigmatic drama of a pessimism that is not so much radical as it is contingent but no less oppressive on conscience in crisis, repeatedly recovering historical or classical themes deeply reworked (Leben Gundlings Friedrich von Preussen Lessings Schlaf Traum Schrei, absurd title for a ” fable ” that demythologizes the figure of the great king, 1979; Hamletmaschine, 1980, trans. it., 1988; Anatomie Titus, 1985), or directly grasping topical issues (Quartett, 1982; Verkommenes Ufer, 1983; Wolokolamsker Chaussee, 1989). The third of the “ greats ” of the East, V. Braun, also aims to trace a humanistic dimension, opposing the re-emerging romanticizing temptations, despite the recognized ruinousness of the moment (e.g., in Übergangsgesellschaft, 1987), and among the three he is confirmed as the least ideologically insecure.

Even in the West, in an atmosphere of maximum even if often unproductive permissiveness, there have been more confirmations than news.

Among others, Germany Reinshagen (b. 1926) continues to propose his ” little ” people overwhelmed by the events of the ” great ” history (Eisenherz, 1982; Die Feuerblume, 1988); T. Dorst (b. 1925), champion of the anti-Brechtian theater, goes from the family saga (concluded in 1985 with Heinrich oder Die Schmerzen der Phantasie) to the recovery of the baroque theater (Korbes, 1988); B. Strauss also confirms himself as a great virtuosist in dealing with the varied range, from doubt to despair, of the existential crisis of a lost self (Kalldewey Farce, 1982; Der Park, 1984; Die Fremdenführerin, 1986; Besucher, 1988, trad. It., Die Zeit und das Zimmer, 1989; Schlusschor, 1991).

Then there is the core of the declared realists, who with more or less openly provocative tones place markedly the accent on the distortions of a society which, in its satisfied opulence, aims to forget. It is no coincidence that the most established and insistent are from the south, mostly from Monaco, that is, from a province that more than others has suddenly enriched itself and therefore would just as suddenly prefer to ignore what remains outside the framework of new decor that has been given to itself.

With extensive recourse to the dialect, H. Achternbusch (b.1938) proposes a kind of family saga of his campaign with Mein Herbst (1983) and Weg (1985), falling into excesses that more than intended alter the line of a discourse. otherwise interesting and not obvious. All the more he falls into excesses, all willed, FX Kroetz (b.1946), transgressive to the point of blasphemous desecration, trivial to the point of disgust, opposed as no one to a corrupt and false society (Bauern sterben, 1985; Der Nusser, 1986; Heimat, 1987). L. Fels also unleashes all his anti- bourgeois anger in the theater (Lieblieb, 1986); and his is one of the few new names worthy of attention, alongside that of F. Roth (Das Ganze ein Stück, 1986, a kind of sensitive polyphony of voices on the theme of love), and that of the younger of the realists, R. Goetz, who in the Krieg trilogy (1987-88) confusedly cries out his radical horror on the rotten point that culpably threatens the existing, from the planetary reality to the social up to the ruinously compromised individuality.

Germany Literature 3

About the author