Laughing with and about Death? Werner Bergengruen’s Philosophical and Literary Approaches

Abstract

Werner Bergengruen (d. 1964) was one of the most popular German authors from ca. 1930 to at least 1970, but his reputation has faded a lot, and there are only a few scholars who are still engaged with his works. In his collection of novels, Der Tod von Reval, however, Bergengruen developed a fascinating range of literary reflections on death as people in this Baltic city (Reval, today Tallinn) had experienced it throughout their history. Drawing extensively from medieval and early modern legendary accounts, this author translated in a highly meaningful manner the fundamental experience of death into an existentialist process profoundly informed by humanist values.