Tina oder über die Unsterblichkeit

Not only Homer was familiar with the underworld. Arno Schmidt, nearly 3000 years later, also helped his readers take a glimpse into the beyond. His Elysium lies directly beneath Darmstadt, and like in Homer’s Hades, the souls in Schmidt’s narrative, all more or less well-known poets, want nothing more than to escape. Unfortunately, this longing is obstructed by the fame so stubbornly pursued in this life. For the rule applies: “Everyone is condemned to live down here as long as their name still appears acoustically or visually on Earth above.” The painter and graphic artist Eberhard Schlotter illustrated this witty yet bitter satire on the poet's dream of immortality with 25 etchings. And both text and image leave no doubt: immortality cannot be the goal, but rather gracious oblivion: “finally at peace, dead.”.