Detlev von Liliencron endeckt, gefeiert und gelesen von Karl Kraus by Joachim Kersten and Friedrich Pfäfflin (review)

Any first impression of this book as covering a narrow range vanishes on examining its breadth more closely. It presents "alle erreichbaren gedruckten und ungedruckten 78 Briefe, Postkarten and Telegramme von Liliencron an Kraus und die 12 Schriftstücke von Kraus an Liliencron" (443). If it were confined to that, its value would indeed be limited, but the editors offer such thorough contextual information and include so many more letters that this study emerges as comprehensive in its record of literary history, politics, and networking from the early 1890s to World War I. Almost no writer active through those years is left out, thanks to a rich apparatus identifying and placing every person or work mentioned in the correspondence. The annotations are in themselves comprehensive and reveal meticulous detective work as Pfäfflin, the editor of the correspondence, leads us through persons, places, and things for a full education in the literature of the period.

As Pfäfflin remarks in a prefatory note (98): "Der Briefwechsel, mit Dokumenten belegt und kommentierend nacherzählt, lässt erstaunen." The editor's remark applies equally to the biography of Liliencron (9–95) prepared by Kersten that precedes the correspondence. The first astonishment comes in reading a detailed portrait of the artist. You could never make up the story of "Liliencrons Leben, seine lebensgewandten, lebenshungrigen Seiten mit ihren Niederlagen und Nöten, seine geniale, unwiderstehliche Pumpwirtschaft" (98). He was an impecunious Prussian officer-aristocrat with a distinguished combat career; a wanderer who gave piano lessons in Texas and lived in a flophouse in New York; a poet whose appearance disconcerted audiences ("Es ist geradezu mein Stolz, daß ich immer für einen Fettwarenhändler gehalten werde," 69); and an eroticist with a fierce, unbridled gusto for sex that lasted into his late years and about which he was amazingly candid. His letters almost burst off the page in their humor, immediacy, and concentrated intensity of living.

The second and greater surprise is the extent to which Liliencron was esteemed as man and artist. It really does appear as if no one ever disliked him despite his incessant cadging; affability on both sides—it does not exclude hilarious frankness—never falters or wears thin. Negative assessements do seem not to exist. And while critics like Josef Nadler began to turn their noses up at his allegedly shallow poetry starting in the 1930s, his reputation before that ranked him among the very best lyricists. Audiences flocked to his readings after he started to become well known. One of his early commentators, Harry Maync, noted that Liliencron's tone was "quellfrisch und unabgestanden […] kühn und vielfach drastisch" (17). Karl Kraus, never quickly fooled or easily pleased, proclaimed confidently as early as 1892: "Es giebt in Deutschland einen Dichter, einen echten Dichter […] Detlev Freiherr von Liliencron. […] In seinen Gedichten schlägt der Pulsschlag des Lebens, warmen Lebens, das reichste Herz und der feinste Kopf spricht aus ihnen" (102). Nor did Kraus's admiration ever wane or falter. The pitiless rancor and biting satire for which Kraus was famous are never in evidence here; his respect for Liliencron extended to a glowing memorial in Der Fackel in March 1914, when some of the poet's letters were published (348–52), and it was Kraus's habit, when he gave readings of his great jeremiad "In dieser großen Zeit," to end with a selection of Liliencron's poems—lyrics by a combat officer in opposition to militarism!

The title of the book bears out its achievement, and chapters grouped around prevalent themes chronologically presented trace the relationship in full. Typical titles, then, are "Erinnerungszeichen für Annie Kalmar und Hugo Wolf: 1903" (218–27) and "Liliencrons Nachlass und wie man damit umgeht: Richard Dehmel und Karl Kraus: 1909–1914" (312–52). The correspondence itself touches on every literary personality and development of the time—the denunciations of Hauptmann and Wedekind, publishers...