Antikenkonfigurationen in der deutschsprachigen Lyrik nach 1990 by Von Aniela Knoblich (review)

This study is a timely complement to stocktaking reports by B. Seidensticker (2002) or St. Elit (2010) concerning the reception of classical literature as it examines references to antiquity in four contemporary poets whose thematic proclivities justify systematic analysis. Comparable research has focused more exclusively on individual figures (e.g., G. Paul on B. Köhler, 2013) or dealt with the sublime (Th. Hoffmann 2006). In exploring very distinct modes of these “Antikenbezüge” (341), Aniela Knoblich’s revised dissertation puts the emphasis on the poets’ appropriation or what G. Genette regarded as an act of creative “transformation” (18) of such sources. As “fragments” and “palimpsests,” the extant relics inspire poets to equate them with mnemonic remnants of experience or to create textual analogues.

The publication comprises reflections on (I) the historical trend; (II) poetic imagery for corrupted sources; (III) a study of translation concepts; nuanced analyses of (IV) patterns of versification and (V) geo-cultural settings as themes; and (VI) a critical discussion of the poets’ self-fashioning. Durs Grünbein, Thomas Kling, and Raoul Schrott take center stage in three chapters; Barbara Köhler enters the discussion only briefly in Chapters Two and Five. Knoblich organizes her discussions around several polar opposites. For example, the poets’ adaptations of classical poems/plays are introduced by reminding the reader of the cleavage between transformative and reconstructive renderings as advocated by E. Staiger and W. Schadewaldt (71–72). In her exquisitely nuanced examination, Knoblich points out sharp differences between Kling’s liberal “Revitalisierung” (77, 107) and Grünbein’s measured “Wiedergabe” (125, 122), which includes corny jokes and “Missgriffe” (123). Furthermore, Köhler transforms the original through a foregrounding of love, while Schrott’s reconstruction disappoints because of lewd insinuations. These poets’ defense of classical poetry gains purchase through their rereading of Sappho, Homer, Ovid, Catullus, Juvenal, and Seneca as originators whose bluntness (or gender-blindness) had been underappreciated and ignored, due to eulogized or bowdlerized versions advocated by philologists. In many respects, Grünbein turns out to be the prototype of a successful reconciliation of craftsmanship and cerebral exploration of themes. Identifying himself with deracinated modernists as “Mittelsmänner” (254), this poet can easily bridge the gulf between antiquity and modernity by adopting a stoic attitude and allowing a “holprig” hexameter (145). By contrast, experimenters such as Kling or Köhler have shown an open disregard for metrical convention, thus underscoring the differences between Grünbein’s “Formstrenge” (135) and their “Sorglosigkeit” (160) in dealing with prosody. Schrott earns Knoblich’s disapprobation for falling prey to inconsistent explanations and a peculiar “Metrensimulation” (193). Ultimately, with the exception of Grünbein, optical arrangements preponderate, thus leaving us with the impression that claims regarding a general re-endorsement of classical meter would be hard to substantiate.

With regard to geo-cultural settings, this study includes a solid account of how the modern metropolis or the hotel has figured as catalyst for re-imagining cultural ties to ancient topoi. In deploying metaphors such as “Erinnerungsraum” (198), Knoblich reminds her audience of the special significance given to textual and mnemonic spaces that are being traversed with great ease by cosmopolitan subjects. Close readings of selected poems suggest that Kling sought to turn New York into a bucolic landscape (235) while Schrott chose Winckelmann’s death in Triest to signal the termination of his untruthful “Antikenauffassung” (268). Symbolic value is also attributed to Grünbein’s “Exilgedichte,” which stage a European’s return from L.A. to the Old World. In Knoblich’s persuasive analysis, the poet imagines his own “Dichterweihe” (208) in encounters with Juvenal as his “Widergänger” (sic, 208); it is in Imperial Rome, rather than modern California, that this revenant will discover the “Seelenverwandtschaft” (208) needed for his transhistorical bonding.

In the last section, the author proceeds to the poets’ emblems and masks that conceal the speaker’s inner self. Since a “Gestus des Wettstreitens” (210) prevails among the poets...