Description
Book SynopsisThe guiding theme of these essays is the fate of the imagination and the condition of art in the modern world, where both appear to be enfeebled by scientific hubris, undermined by psychological self-questioning and compromised by political disaster.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments; Preface; 1. The poet in the age of prose: reflections on Hegel's Aesthetics and Rilke's Duino Elegies; 2. The broken tradition: an address; 3. Nietzsche's last words about art and truth; 4. Thinking about poetry, Hölderlin and Heidegger; 5. Karl Kraus; 6. Literature and political responsibility: apropos the letters of Thomas Mann; 7. The taking back of the Ninth Symphony: reflections on Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus; 8. Thomas Mann's diaries and the search for identity; 9. Knut Hamsun; 10. Observations on psychoanalysis and modern literature; 11. The dismantling of a marionette theatre; or, psychology and the misinterpretation of literature; 12. Man ashamed; 13. Theodor Fontane: the extraordinary education of a Prussian apothecary; 14. The little world of Wilhelm Busch.
