Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Brockman, Beatrix M

Titel

"Nur fliegend faengt man worte ein": Eva Strittmatters poetik

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This dissertation is the first critical engagement with the published oeuvre of Eva Strittmatter (1930-2011), a renowned poet and letter writer in the former GDR. This study establishes Strittmatter as a lyricist of import, whose poetry excels due to the theoretical underpinnings she develops in her prose. Her poems distinguish themselves by an intricate prosody and a multi-layered texture, which makes them accessible to readers from all walks of life. Beginning with an examination of Strittmatter's prose works, I show her evolvement as a writer and her increasingly self-reflective approach to verse. My analysis of her poetry focuses on four major characteristics of her poetic work: (1) metapoetics—linguistic aspects and reflection of the creative process within Strittmatter's poems, (2) emancipation through language—the evolvement from the subversive use of "slave-language" to an open discourse about creative freedom, (3) nature poetry—existential reflections through detailed observations in nature, and (4) intertextuality—the poet's dialogue with world literature (Goethe, Puschkin among others) as knowledge base and stepping stone for the development of a very distinct poetry of her own. This dissertation challenges previous notions of Eva Strittmatter as an East German poet of lesser significance and ascertains her place in the canon of major German poets such as Hilde Domin or Ulla Hahn.