Statische gedichten

by Gottfried Benn, Huub Beurskens (translator)

German

Genres: Poetry

159 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Gottfried 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.

Reviews

[Uralte Morla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaum ein anderer knetet meine Seele so poetisch durch und führt sie so brutal-sanft in die Nacht wie Gottfried Benn. Mehr gibt es zu seinen Texten eigentlich nicht zu sagen. Einfach lesen!

[Melanie Fritz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Benn's comeback collection after WWII had ended and it was hugely successful. He called it "Static poems", which describes them pretty well. They are not political at all, instead referencing Greek mythology, art and culture. They have a mostly melancholic tone and center around loss, death and self-reflective assessments. He is mixing free verse with traditional verse forms and, although much more conservative than in his early days as an expressionist poet, he is still experimenting with language and images in a way that I really liked.