Description
Poetically written and originally given as lectures, this is a moving essay collection from Durs Grunbein.
In his four Lord Weidenfeld Lectures held in Oxford in 2019, German poet Durs Grunbein dealt with a topic that has occupied his mind ever since he began to perceive his own position within the past of his nation, his linguistic community, and his family: How is it possible that history can determine the individual poetic imagination and segregate it into private niches? Shouldn't poetry look at the world with its own sovereign eyes instead?
In the form of a collage or "photosynthesis," in image and text, Grunbein lets the fundamental opposition between poetic license and almost overwhelming bondage to history appear in an exemplary way. From the seeming trifle of a stamp with the portrait of Adolf Hitler, he moves through the phenomenon of the "Fuhrer's streets" and into the inferno of aerial warfare. In the end, Grunbein argues that we are faced with the powerlessness of writing and the realization, valid to this day, that comes from confronting history. As he muses, "There is something beyond literature that questions all writing."
About the Author
Durs Grunbein was born in Dresden in 1962, and he now lives in Berlin and Rome. He is professor of poetics and aesthetics at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. He has written more than twenty-five books, including, most recently, Porcelain, also published by Seagull Books. Karen Leeder is a writer, translator, and academic. She teaches German at New College, Oxford.
Reviews
"Drawing on writers such as Hannah Arendt, Viktor Klemperer, Heiner Muller, and W. G. Sebald (among others), Grunbein describes the current state of German national psychology as still recovering from its Nazi past, still searching for its own appropriate literature." * Choice *
"These lectures identify Grunbein as both a poet and a German struggling to come to terms with his language. Grunbein interweaves sensitive readings of sociology, philosophy and contemporary diarists in an attempt to make some sense of the contentious subject of Germanness." * Times Literary Supplement *
Book Information
ISBN 9780857429544
Author Durs Grunbein
Format Hardback
Page Count 164
Imprint Seagull Books London Ltd
Publisher Seagull Books London Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 23mm
In his four Lord Weidenfeld Lectures held in Oxford in 2019, German poet Durs Grunbein dealt with a topic that has occupied his mind ever since he began to perceive his own position within the past of his nation, his linguistic community, and his family: How is it possible that history can determine the individual poetic imagination and segregate it into private niches? Shouldn't poetry look at the world with its own sovereign eyes instead?
In the form of a collage or "photosynthesis," in image and text, Grunbein lets the fundamental opposition between poetic license and almost overwhelming bondage to history appear in an exemplary way. From the seeming trifle of a stamp with the portrait of Adolf Hitler, he moves through the phenomenon of the "Fuhrer's streets" and into the inferno of aerial warfare. In the end, Grunbein argues that we are faced with the powerlessness of writing and the realization, valid to this day, that comes from confronting history. As he muses, "There is something beyond literature that questions all writing."
About the Author
Durs Grunbein was born in Dresden in 1962, and he now lives in Berlin and Rome. He is professor of poetics and aesthetics at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf. He has written more than twenty-five books, including, most recently, Porcelain, also published by Seagull Books. Karen Leeder is a writer, translator, and academic. She teaches German at New College, Oxford.
Reviews
"Drawing on writers such as Hannah Arendt, Viktor Klemperer, Heiner Muller, and W. G. Sebald (among others), Grunbein describes the current state of German national psychology as still recovering from its Nazi past, still searching for its own appropriate literature." * Choice *
"These lectures identify Grunbein as both a poet and a German struggling to come to terms with his language. Grunbein interweaves sensitive readings of sociology, philosophy and contemporary diarists in an attempt to make some sense of the contentious subject of Germanness." * Times Literary Supplement *
Book Information
ISBN 9780857429544
Author Durs Grunbein
Format Hardback
Page Count 164
Imprint Seagull Books London Ltd
Publisher Seagull Books London Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 23mm
