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In the jaws of death and madness: reflections on Georg Heym's prose

Abstract

This article proposes to study a prominent figure of the German expressionist movement little known in Spanish: Georg Heym. Notorious especially for his poetry and the strong influence that it exercised on the development of lyrics in 20th-century Germany, the study seeks to explore the author's lesser-known strand: his Novellen. Through this genre, the author radicalizes his aesthetic explorations, at the same time that he exposes the ideological formations of the bourgeoisie of the German Empire. In this sense, the present work offers also a political reading and the consequences of expressionist artistic creation in the spiritual configuration of National Socialism and the German identity. To investigate in depth these relations between philosophy, politics and literature in Wilhelmine Germany, a selection of the author's most emblematic Novellen is taken into consideration. With this in mind, the article presents a renewed reading of a fundamental author in the history of German literature.

Keywords:
Georg Heym; German literature; German expressionism; National Socialism; Literary theory

Universidade de São Paulo/Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas/; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Língua e Literatura Alemã Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 403, 05508-900 São Paulo/SP/ Brasil, Tel.: (55 11)3091-5028 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: pandaemonium@usp.br