Crisis and Form in the Later Writing of Ingeborg Bachmann: an Aesthetic Examination of the Poetic Drafts of the 1960s

Research output: Book/ReportBook

Abstract

Ingeborg Bachmann (1927-73), one of the most acclaimed German-language poets of the post-1945 period, famously turned away from the lyric during the 1960s. Publically declaring that she had stopped writing poetry, Bachmann began work on the prose Todesarten cycle that would dominate the last decade of her life. During a period of breakdown in the 1960s, however, she privately continued to write in verse, and the publication of selected drafts in 2000 threw new light on her compositional methods in these years. As the most extensive study to date of the poetic drafts, this monograph leads away from the polemic that surrounded their publication to establish the fragmentary texts as an experimental stage of writing that proved formally and thematically significant for later published prose works. Bridging the genre gap of much Bachmann scholarshipm McMurtry illuminates the development of a reflexive mode where sophisticated aesthetic strategies enable the oblique expression of cultural critique.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherModern Humanities Research Association
Number of pages250
Volume84
ISBN (Print)9781907322396
Publication statusPublished - 2012

Publication series

NameTexts & Dissertations
PublisherModern Humanities Research Association
Volume84
ISSN (Print)0957-0322

Keywords

  • Crisis Poetry Prose Form Ingeborg Bachmann post-war poetry

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Crisis and Form in the Later Writing of Ingeborg Bachmann: an Aesthetic Examination of the Poetic Drafts of the 1960s'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this