Clayton, Alan J.
Writing with the Words of Others

Essays on the Poetry of Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

In this study a considerable number of Enzensberger's most important poems are closely analyzed, including the texts that make up his major poetic cycles, "Mausoleum" (1975) and "Der Untergang der Titanic" (1978). Central to any discussion of this highly diverse corpus is the way in which Enzensberger creates strikingly original poems on the basis of borrowed material. The appropriation of documentary material also plays an important role in the series of poems devoted to nature or science, many of which present themselves as riddles. The various personages portrayed in "Mausoleum" comprise not only scientists, inventors, explorers, and thinkers who were responsible for truly world-changing discoveries, but also a whole series of historical figures whose admission to this oddball pantheon is best explained by the bizarreness of their often utopian projects or by their compulsive or megalomaniacal personalities. The author's reading of this collection demonstrates Enzensberger's willingness to undermine seriousness with irony and humor. The final chapter examines the relation between poetry and politics and examines the notorious essay "Gemeinplätze, die Neueste Literatur betreffend" (1968) as well as the disturbing interview with the "Weimarer Beiträge" (1971), in which the poet expresses his thankfully short-lived rejection of literature as art and his desire to break out of the 'Ghetto des Kulturlebens'. Other chapters focus on the poet's taste for anachronism, his 'asynchronous' sensibility, and the recurrent theme of disappearance. 271 Seiten, broschiert (Königshausen & Neumann 2010) leichte Lagerspuren/minor shelfwear