Geschichte der deutschen Lyrik

This book describes the development of German-language poetry from the 10th to the 21st century. It assigns poems to general historical processes, but equally takes into account the individuality of the authors, who in their texts pursue the search for meaning in life. Representative poems are discussed in more detail in their formal language and content. In addition to all the information, this book also aims to awaken or increase the enjoyment of the great achievements of German lyric poetry. The history of German-language poetry begins in the 10th century with short texts for use: with the Petruslied and the Merseburg Zaubersprüche. From here, a wide arc stretches to the present day: Via the ravishing and witty love poems of the High Middle Ages, via the sonnets in which Andreas Gryphius struggles for an order of the world, to Klopstock's free rhythms in which he celebrates a new attitude to life; from Goethe's numerous forms of first person pronunciation, hardly believable in their abundance, via Hölderlin's prophetic speech, to Heine's ironic jokes; from Droste-Hülshoff's painfully precise gaze to George's slogans of power and his mournful songs to Benn's surges and laconies; from Celan's magical sounds to Enzensberger's furor to Rühmkopf's beautiful melancholies. Again and again, the poems struggle for a self-understanding, for the question of how the individual human being can describe and determine himself in the world surrounding him; what gives him support, what does he turn away from, what does he believe, and what does he doubt? In the process, very different types of poems and highly diverse rhythms emerge. These forms are not accidental, but are related to the historical situation from which they emerge, embodying an interpretation of the world. To present the history of German poetry as a context and at the same time to discover the specificity of its many voices - that is the task of this book.