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Prose, Essays, Poems: Gottfried Benn
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298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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224 people want to read
About the author
Gottfried Benn
194 books88 followersGottfried Benn was a German essayist, novelist and expressionist poet. A doctor of medicine, he became an early admirer, and later a critic, of the National Socialist revolution. Benn had a literary influence on German verse immediately before and after the NS regime.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 20, 2021
My youth is like a scab: under it there is a wound that every day leaks blood. It disfigures me.
It is most difficult to eschew the biographical/historical when confronting Benn. I tried and failed. I read the stories then leaped ahead to the verse and concluded with the essays. The poems are offered in different translations which was a lesson in humility. I can still see why he isn't more popular even in German. the images are daunting and protean. think Otto Dix, a fellow German expressionist. Then came the real dubious period. Benn flirted with the ideology of National Socialism and wrote essays heralding this Promethean fire made manifest. Perhaps we should listen to Žižek with respect to the choices made in Dark Times? I find myself unable to pursue that and while I think my inability is due to age and the accrued tumult, Benn offers an answer, not a defense in his essay on the Artist and Aging. He is also masterful in painting the fate of the individual amidst such uncertainty:
Once more the golden flocks
of heaven, the light, the trim—
what is the ancient process
hatching under its dying wings?
His time isn't so remote and of the anger across the globe and storming the Beltway on January 6 2021, a contemporary albeit untimely reader reflects upon this cosmic uncertainty and the rage is an apt outlet. Such is completely ephemeral but it constitutes a response. Benn is quite the scholar and I hesitate to ponder his remarks of disenchantment against those of Steiner's heralded Death of Tragedy.
It is most difficult to eschew the biographical/historical when confronting Benn. I tried and failed. I read the stories then leaped ahead to the verse and concluded with the essays. The poems are offered in different translations which was a lesson in humility. I can still see why he isn't more popular even in German. the images are daunting and protean. think Otto Dix, a fellow German expressionist. Then came the real dubious period. Benn flirted with the ideology of National Socialism and wrote essays heralding this Promethean fire made manifest. Perhaps we should listen to Žižek with respect to the choices made in Dark Times? I find myself unable to pursue that and while I think my inability is due to age and the accrued tumult, Benn offers an answer, not a defense in his essay on the Artist and Aging. He is also masterful in painting the fate of the individual amidst such uncertainty:
Once more the golden flocks
of heaven, the light, the trim—
what is the ancient process
hatching under its dying wings?
His time isn't so remote and of the anger across the globe and storming the Beltway on January 6 2021, a contemporary albeit untimely reader reflects upon this cosmic uncertainty and the rage is an apt outlet. Such is completely ephemeral but it constitutes a response. Benn is quite the scholar and I hesitate to ponder his remarks of disenchantment against those of Steiner's heralded Death of Tragedy.
March 5, 2020
Τον Μπεν δεν τον ήξερα. Μου τον πρότεινε τυχαία ο αδερφός μου πριν κανά μήνα, προτάσσοντας τον κυνισμό του ποιητή ως κάτι αξιοπρόσεκτο. Η συλλογή του απ το νεκροτομείο ήταν πραγματικά κάτι μοναδικό. Πάντα πίστευα πως η τέχνη όχι μόνο δεν πρέπει να εξωραΐζει τίποτα, τουναντίον, πρεπει είναι μια δίοπτρα που οφείλει να μεγεθύνει την φρίκη της ζωής διανθίζοντας την με μια γάργαρη πηγαία ρίμα, σαν ένα άνθος που γεννιέται απο το διαμελισμένο κουφάρι ενός ναρκομανή. Αντιπροσωπευτικό παράδειγμα της τέχνης είναι το νουαρ για μενα, η αντίθεση, η σκοτεινή εικόνα, όπως οι 3-4 γραμμές που είχε αφιερώσει ο Ντοστογιεφσκι στο ματωμένο τσεκούρι του ρασκολνικοβ, στο εγκλημα και τιμωρία. Ο Μπεν όντως ήταν κάτι διαφορετικό και παραθέτω μερικούς στίχους απο κάτω:
"Στον πάγκο σώριασαν εναν καραγωγέα πνιγμένο.
Καποιος του χε σφηνώσει αναμεσα στα δόντια ενα αστρολούλουδο μενεξεδένιο.
Εκει που του κανα, με το μακρύ νυστέρι μου στο στήθος μια τομή,
κόβοντας γλώσσ και ουρανίσκο,
πρέπει να το σπρωξα γιατί απαλα,
γλιστρησε στον εγκέφαλο που ταν εκει κοντα,
Οσο τον έραβαν προλαβα και του το χωσα
στο κούφωμα του στήθους,
μεσα στα ροκανίδια
Πιες να χορτάσεις μες το βάζο σου!
Κοιμου εν ειρήνη,
μικρό αστρολούλουδο!"
(ps gottfried benn: ποιήματα εκδόσεις Guttenberg. Για κάποιο λογο δε μπορούσα να βρω το βιβλίο επομένως δήλωσα ότι πιο κοντινό βρήκα σε αυτό που διάβασα.)
"Στον πάγκο σώριασαν εναν καραγωγέα πνιγμένο.
Καποιος του χε σφηνώσει αναμεσα στα δόντια ενα αστρολούλουδο μενεξεδένιο.
Εκει που του κανα, με το μακρύ νυστέρι μου στο στήθος μια τομή,
κόβοντας γλώσσ και ουρανίσκο,
πρέπει να το σπρωξα γιατί απαλα,
γλιστρησε στον εγκέφαλο που ταν εκει κοντα,
Οσο τον έραβαν προλαβα και του το χωσα
στο κούφωμα του στήθους,
μεσα στα ροκανίδια
Πιες να χορτάσεις μες το βάζο σου!
Κοιμου εν ειρήνη,
μικρό αστρολούλουδο!"
(ps gottfried benn: ποιήματα εκδόσεις Guttenberg. Για κάποιο λογο δε μπορούσα να βρω το βιβλίο επομένως δήλωσα ότι πιο κοντινό βρήκα σε αυτό που διάβασα.)
November 28, 2007
There's been a rediscovery of Benn's work lately. I've noticed a lot of mention of him (and a few translations) in Poetry magazine. I checked this out after reading a line from John Berryman's Dream Songs that mentions him (I think it went: "We are using our skins as wallpaper and/we cannot win, says Gottfried Benn." Or something like that.) Although it's been awhile, my impression was that his poetry is a lot like expressionism without a lot of the histrionics that usually accompany it; gaunt landscapes accompanied by a mordantly, cynically sociable voice. It didn't so much evince an aesthetic as provoke a dour mood.
I adored it, although I felt for a long time like I shouldn't have because Benn was pro-Nazi for awhile, and eventually joined the Wehrmacht as a doctor despite having had serious misgivings about the regime. It's a pity because I wish I still had this book around - his writing is pungent, and I guess he's been shown to have been a less willing participant in Nazism than had been previously supposed.
He may be another casualty of the difficulty in distinguishing between the things that happen to writers and the things that happen because of them; until I am given more evidence, though, I am going to choose to like Gottfried Benn.
I adored it, although I felt for a long time like I shouldn't have because Benn was pro-Nazi for awhile, and eventually joined the Wehrmacht as a doctor despite having had serious misgivings about the regime. It's a pity because I wish I still had this book around - his writing is pungent, and I guess he's been shown to have been a less willing participant in Nazism than had been previously supposed.
He may be another casualty of the difficulty in distinguishing between the things that happen to writers and the things that happen because of them; until I am given more evidence, though, I am going to choose to like Gottfried Benn.
April 14, 2025
Benn explores/expresses pessimistic nihilism, including ties to Nazism. He wants to fuse/overcome it with formalism.
December 29, 2020
the prose is insane; I've stumbled upon great love...
Rönne!!!
Rönne!!!
December 29, 2022
Little Aster
A drowned drayman was hoisted on to the slab.
Someone had jammed a lavender aster
between his teeth.
As I made the incision up from the chest
with a long knife
under the skin
to cut out tongue and gums,
I must have nudged it because it slipped
into the brain lying adjacent.
I packed it into the thoracic cavity
with the excelsior
when he was sewn up.
Drink your fill in your vase!
Rest easy,
little aster!
A drowned drayman was hoisted on to the slab.
Someone had jammed a lavender aster
between his teeth.
As I made the incision up from the chest
with a long knife
under the skin
to cut out tongue and gums,
I must have nudged it because it slipped
into the brain lying adjacent.
I packed it into the thoracic cavity
with the excelsior
when he was sewn up.
Drink your fill in your vase!
Rest easy,
little aster!
July 9, 2021
One of my favorite poets! Visceral! Impassioned! Brilliant!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews