Phantasus.

by Arno Holz

Rare Book

Genres: Poetry, German Literature, Classics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Arno Holz was a German naturalist poet and dramatist. He is best known for his poetry collection Phantasus (1898).

Reviews

[BJ Lillis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure how I found this minor classic of decadent poetry, but I’m glad I did. I read a scan of the first edition (1898, and unavoidably in German, sadly for many of you), which I highly recommend—the design and typography feel important to the pleasure of the poetry. And it is a pleasure. An odd, indulgent, hazy kind of pleasure, a little like watching a scratchy black and white silent movie from the 1910s, then suddenly there’s a scene change and naked starlets from the turn of the last century in shimmering hand-colored veils are swimming through a flowering silver grotto and the sheer dumb pleasure of it crackles through time like brand new just invented electricity.

[Osiris Oliphant]

Arno Holz: Seven billion years before I was born ... (from: Phantasus)

Seven billion years before I was born
I was an iris.
My searching roots sucked themselves around a star.
From its bulging dream blue waters
in 10 new circling world rings,
growth,
rose,
thrust,
flowed,
sprayed
- my dark giant bloom!

[Kiran Bhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can be said about a poetry collection as strange as Phantasus. The poem is a large prose poem full of images, sounds, and all sorts of dazzling lines of languages. Phantasus is the type of book I'll never understand and I applaud it. I feel like I have to read it time and time again to understand what Holz is going for, but that's also what makes it good. Holz was an influential surrealist for a reason. He really befuddles you with his words.

Phantasus is a hard book to recommend, but something anyone interested in the development of literature must read.

[Neemias Teck · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tradução e a parte crítica formam uma autêntica obra prima. Parabéns a Simone.

[Matthias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich liege noch im Bett und habe eben Kaffee getrunken. / Das Feuer im Ofen knattert schon, / durchs Fenster, / das ganze Stübchen füllend, / Schneelicht. //Ich lese. // Huysmans. Là Bas. // ... Alors, / en sa blanche splendeur, / l'âme du Moyen Age rayonna dans cette salle ... // Plötzlich, / irgendwo tiefer im Hause, / ein Kanarienvogel. // Die schönsten Läufe! //Ich lasse das Buch sinken. // Die Augen schliessen sich mir, / ich liege wieder da, den Kopf in die Kissen – –