Heinrich Heine und die „rote Weltliteratur“

Abstract

Heine develops his idea of world literature, i.e., Welthülfsliteratur independently of Goethe following Eduard Gans and the journal Le Globe. Although Heine’s socio-critical prose and poetry can be subsumed under this idea and as much as it rests on the notion of a transnational exchange of literature, the term Heine used one time only did not get much attention from his contemporaries. It is not until the Weimar Republic that the project of a “red world literature” (Johannes R. Becher) connects with Heine’s vision of Welthüflsliteratur, as it were as workers’ literature avant la letter. This essay tracks this connection through the early 20th century Marxist campaign for a “red” world literature. In this context, Heine’s works become part of a concerted effort of Marxist world literary aspirations. Heine’s biographical proximity and Lenin’s partial rehabilitation of bourgeois literature as well as the social-democratic canonization of his selectively curated texts allows Heine to circulate in the networks of the international Marxist press thus making his work de facto a Welthülfsliteratur.