Gesang und Abgesang Deutscher Lyrik von Goethe bis Celan

For more than 200 years, lyrical poetry was the guage of individual sensitivity. The rhyme, the meter, the musicality of the images - the whole tonality of a poem expressed something that could only be conveyed through the medium of poetry. This volume is a long essay that looks back on the age of splendour of German lyric poetry, bringing it back to life. It is a fascinating account, written by an expert on the historical settings behind 200 years of poetry from Goethe to Celan.The existentialist reflections of the lyricist Bruno Hillebrand resound throughout his encounters with Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Novalis and Eichendorff, Heine and Nietzsche, Hofmannsthal, George and Rilke, Benn and Brecht, and even Eich, Bobrowski, Bachmann and Celan. Each poet, in particular their biographies and literary environment, is dealt with in a separate chapter. Collective movements such as Expressionism and Dadaism, Group 47 or concrete poetry, and inter-relations among them, are discussed separately - often quite critically. Detailed examples are always included in the form of poems, manifestos, letters etc. This volume is concerned not with interpreting the poetry, but illuminating an historical panorama.

Prof. Dr. Bruno Hillebrand ist seit 1971 Ordinarius für Neuere deutsche Literaturgeschichte an der Universität Mainz, seit 1978 Ordentliches Mitglied der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur und seit 1984 Mitglied der Freien Akademie der Künste. Prof. Dr. Bruno Hillebrand (born 1935) is Full Professor for Modern German Literary History at the University of Mainz since 1971, Fellow of the Academy of the Sciences and Literature, Mainz since 1978 and Member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Mannheim since 1984. He was Visiting Professor to several universities in Japan and the United States.