Gottfried Benn - Böcker

Gottfried Benn (1886-1957) occupies a position in modern German literature often compared to that of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound in English. This volume presents a comprehensive anthology of the author’s finest work-poetry (with the German originals en face), short stories, a scene from one of his plays, essays and autobiographical writings, including a unique insight into the German intellectual metamorphosis before, under and after Hitler. And in a long introduction, the editor, E. B. Ashton, places Benn in the perspective of recent German history and gives an account of his life––a dramatic and moving story in its own right. By profession a physician, Benn was fascinated by the philosophical aspects of many branches of science, and over the years he wrote a number of extraordinary essays in which the poet’s intuitive vision was accorded the utmost imaginative freedom.

This volume in The German Library includes the following authors and plays, which best represent the Expressionist movement of the early 20th century: -- Georg Kaiser: Gas I and Gas II-- Ernst Toller: Masses and Man-- Gottfried Benn: Ithaka-- Oskar Kokoschka: Murderer the Women's Hope-- Carl Sternheim: The Bloomers-- Walter Hasenclever: The Son

These selections from the esteemed career of Gottfried Benn?one of the most significant German poets of the 20th century?showcase his early, shockingly graphic depictions of human suffering and degradation, as well as the isolation and fragmentation of the human being adrift in a nihilistic world