The Cambridge Introduction to German Poetry by Judith Ryan (review)

Conceived as a German studies approach to poetry, Judith Ryan’s solidly planned introduction is a reader-friendly history of literature designed for student audiences, yet also rewarding material for scholars and others interested in the lyric genre. Ryan, of course, is one of the leading authorities on German poetry and the depth of her knowledge in this area indelibly shapes the chapters, which deftly combine interpretations of poems in literary context with thoughtful treatment of historical connections and aesthetic movements. Thus, for example, in a chapter examining poetic roles in early poetic texts, Ryan begins with close readings of several works written in Middle High German to set the stage for analysis of the problem of poetic persona. The chapter concludes with an insightful discussion of the romantic nostalgia for all things medieval and Paul Celan’s appropriation of this tradition in the poem “Matière de Bretagne.” Other chapters have a similarly ambitious scope, reflecting Ryan’s obvious conviction that poetry functions as a dynamic site of knowledge production where issues of representation, subjectivity, ethics, and discourse abound.

The volume is organized into thematically focused chapters that proceed overall in a chronological sequence through German literary history. An introductory chapter (“Exploring the Poem”) provides several models for how to approach a poem through different entry points or perspectives. Here Ryan describes poems as puzzles, emphasizing the openness of the interpretive process by displaying how varied approaches yield different readings of texts. Following the second chapter on “Poetic Roles in Early Song-Lyrics,” Ryan turns her attention to “Devotional Poetry,” “The Rhetoric of Passion,” “Classical Antiquity and Modern Experience,” “Romantic Poetry and the Problem of Lyric Unity,” “The Self and the Senses,” “Modernism and Difficulty,” “Poetry after Auschwitz,” and finally “Political Poetry.” Poems discussed in the volume are quoted in full text version and accompanied by an English prose paraphrase. The close readings Ryan performs of these examples are impeccably done and a pleasure to read—striking illustrations of how to interpret the complex interplay of form and meaning in works of the lyric genre.

Some of the most compelling interpretations of individual texts explore the work of poets who have long occupied Ryan’s research (like Rainer Marie Rilke), but the readings of other poetry offer rich insights as well. Refreshingly, the volume incorporates a generous sampling of examples prior to the age of Goethe, including poems by Paul Fleming, Andreas Gryphius, and Walter von der Vogelweide. In addition to poets whose work certainly would be expected in such a volume (from Goethe, Brentano, Eichendorff, and Heine to Benn, Brecht, and the postwar generation that includes Bachmann, Celan, Enzensberger, and Sachs), work by many other poets appears as well. An emphasis is placed on the lyric genre tradition, which means predominantly short poems with strong aesthetic orientation, thus Hofmannsthal, Hölderlin, Mörike, and Trakl receive treatment, alongside less conventional selections by Günter Grass, Ulla Hahn, and others.

Poetry scholars will be pleased with the breadth of the selection, though likely to notice that it follows implicit criteria that no doubt reflect the pragmatic limitations that such a project faces in terms of space and inclusiveness. Ryan has, for example, written about the tradition of the long poem in German literature, yet wisely elects to exclude it from the present volume, mentioning for instance Durs Grünbein’s poetic cycle Porzellan: Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt (2005) only briefly. Likewise experimental poetry, performance works, and multimedia productions, which play an increasingly important role in poetic discourse of the twenty-first century, are not a part of this survey. Faculty teaching courses about poetry would presumably find it useful to supplement this textual presentation with audio and visual materials found, for example, at the curated website Lyrikline.org. They would also be well advised to consult the growing body of research on teaching poetry in foreign language courses, including the forthcoming 2015 American Association of University...