Klaus Muller-Richter

Following World War II, German-speaking authors have been challenged above all in two ways: historically-politically to the Holocaust and stylistically to surrealism. In this respect, the poetological discourse has concentrated on the meaning and function of literature with regard to the question of metaphor and its possible reference to recent history: How can the inhumanity of National Socialism be described? What role does the metaphor play in the new definition of the relationship between literature and historical events? Is the metaphor an aesthetic digression or the most direct means of expressing the uncertain limits of the describable? The volume analyses these questions by examining the positions of Lehmann, Krolow, Celan, Bachmann, Weiss, Grass, Ruhmkorf, Hartling and Enzensberger.