A Companion to the Literature of German Expressionism
2007; University of Wisconsin Press; Volume: 99; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mon.2007.0034
ISSN1934-2810
Autores ResumoReviewed by: A Companion to the Literature of German Expressionism Peter Zusi A Companion to the Literature of German Expressionism. Edited by Neil H. Donahue. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2005. xiv + 373 pages + 3 color plates. $95.00. 'Expressionism' is a notoriously slippery term: its extraordinary significance for any discussion of central European modernism is obvious, yet attempts to define the movement, [End Page 245] or to decide who belonged to it, or indeed even to determine whether there was such a 'movement' at all, have aroused controversy ever since the term first emerged. Further, at least in the United States, popular awareness of the literature of Expressionism has long stood in the shadow of the visual arts, especially painting and to a degree film. Thus despite generations of scholarly inquiry the topic of literary Expressionism still seems to invite rediscovery and reformulation. Neil H. Donahue, in his introduction surveying the disparate sources whose confluence characterizes the Expressionist decade, neatly turns this complexity into a virtue: "whereas Expressionism had once largely disappeared from such contemporary discussions because of its inherent difficulties of definition, it can now return through that expanded field to the forefront of new historical inquiries into German modernity precisely for its heterogeneity of artistic and stylistic means, its varied intellectual sources, and its social and political agendas" (9). The present volume will be a valuable companion in such re-explorations. Both useful and thought-provoking, this book admirably fulfils the two functions expected from a companion-type volume: to introduce the reader to the range and development of the literature itself and the existing scholarly paradigms; as well as to point to authors, works, and critical perspectives hitherto overlooked, thus suggesting new directions for research. The individual essays by distinguished contributors are mostly organized according to the major genres of prose, lyric poetry, and drama. Richard T. Gray's opening essay examines the crucial and widely acknowledged influence of Nietzsche. In place of more familiar references to vitalism, artist-metaphysics, and Ichdissoziation, however, Gray focuses on what he terms "metaphysical mimesis" and identifies Nietzsche's primary legacy for Expressionism as the "belief in a deeper, more authentic dimension of reality beyond (or below) the world of empirical phenomena" (47). The section on prose begins with a translation of Walter H. Sokel's classic 1969 essay (the only essay not new to this volume) focusing on Alfred Döblin and Carl Einstein as representative of "objective" and "parabolic" trends in Expressionist prose. Rhys W. Williams's essay on the short prose of Expressionism is less typological in nature, instead reading particular works by figures such as Einstein, Sternheim, Benn, Heym, Döblin, and others. Perry Willett's examination of the "woodcut novel" of Frans Masereel represents a provocative expansion of the notion of prose and is the most overtly interdisciplinary contribution to the volume. Francis Michael Sharp provides a critical historical account of the poetry anthology that early on achieved representative status for Expressionist literature: Kurt Pinthus's Menschheitsdämmerung. While respectful of Pinthus's achievement in filtering this diffuse period into recognizable form, Sharp makes clear what was left out of this act of canonization and how much remains to be recovered. This revisionist task is taken even further in Barbara D. Wright's essay on women in/and the movement. Wright demonstrates the all too predictable dearth of scholarly attention to this issue and the great number of literary talents to be rediscovered, reading Hartmut Vollmer's recent anthology of Expressionist poetry by women as a counterweight and corrective to Menschheitsdämmerung. Wright also offers fascinating discussions of, for example, the status of the Mensch so often invoked in Expressionism, the darker side of Nietzsche's influence on the era, and the implications of a broadened canon for the characterization and periodization of the movement as a whole. James Rolleston provides close readings of representative texts by the "big five" poets Stadler, Heym, [End Page 246] Lasker-Schüler, Trakl, and Benn, again returning to the influence of Nietzsche through the frame concept of "choric consciousness." Klaus Weissenberger explores some of the less familiar works from Pinthus's anthology as well as Dadaist texts (Ball and...
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