ANTON SCHNACK (1892–1973): THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE FATE OF THE SELF

Abstract

The poetry of Anton Schnack is not well known, even in Germany. While studying at Munich University in 1913, Schnack came into contact with avant-garde literary circles and contributed poems to numerous Expressionist journals. He spent four months on the Western Front in 1915–16 before being invalided home. Subsequently he produced three collections of Expressionist poetry and a volume of outstanding war poems, ‘Tier rang gewaltig mit Tier’. The sonnets of this long cycle place him in the front rank of war poets. They end not in poetic triumph or reconciliation, but in the dissolution of the self under the impact of modern warfare.