Verpasste und erfasste Möglichkeiten

Using selected examples from modern and contemporary literature, literary scholar and critic Niklas Bender examines how reading literature today can help us make sense of our lives. In the first part of his essay, the author makes a diagnosis of the digital present, which overwhelms us with an overabundance of possible modes of existence. Using the examples of Flaubert, Pirandello, and Houellebecq, he shows how novels can teach us how to deal well with this overload - precisely through narrative worlds in which life paths are also missed at times and potentials are not always exploited. In the second part, three modern and contemporary poets (Baudelaire, Montale, and Nico Bleutge) are used to illustrate the ways in which poetry can help us grasp intense moments. In the third part of the book, another.