Wohin verschlug uns der Traum? Die griechische Antike in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des Dritten Reichs und des Exils by Daria Santini

Abstract

MLR, I03.4, 2oo8 i i67 gent', refers to theenormous success of this theatrical collective's updating ofBrecht' s Die MaJ3nahme. Section iv seems at firstsight out of place in a volume devoted to the surveillance of exiled artists by government agencies. Here Stephan isdealing not with government bodies, butwith themore intangible agencies of themodern world: 'Galerien und Auktionshauser, Werbeagenturen und Kassenerfolge, Bestsellerlisten und dieMedien iubernehmen die Rolle des Staats' (p. 392). Altogether this is an ex tremely richvolume which can be recommended without qualification to thewidest possible readership. All will be grateful toAlexander Stephan for the enormous work he has put into extracting dossiers and transcripts from reluctant government agen cies and themany hours he has spent reading thousands of pages of agents' reports. INSTITUTE OF GERMANIC AND ROMANCE STUDIES, LONDON J.M. RITCHIE Wohin verschluguns der Traum? Die griechischeAntike inder deutschsprachigenLitera turdesDritten Reichs und desExils. By DARIA SANTINI. (Studien zur klassischen Philologie, I54) Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. 2007. I79 pp. ?39. ISBN 978 3-63I-554I9-7. Daria Santini's book expands the concluding chapter of her excellent dissertation, Gerhart Hauptmann zwischenModernitdt und Tradition: Neue Perspektiven zur At riden-Tetralogie (Berlin: Schmidt, I998). Itwas her basic assumption there that 'the literary landscape inGermany of the thirties and forties should be considered as a whole and without the dubious division into exile literature, literature of theThird Reich, and "inner emigration"' (p. I23). She persuasively suggested analogies be tween Hauptmann's tetralogy and such contemporary works as Thomas Mann's 'Joseph' novels, Hermann Broch's Die Verzauberung (also known as Der Versucher), Georg Kaiser's Hellenische Trilogie, and Gottfried Benn's latemythological poems. The present work, taking its title fromMann's Zauberberg, explores those same parallels more thoroughly while adducing additional examples. The study is based on the assumption thatGermans fromHumboldt toHeidegger have internalized the longing forGreece in a manner utterly different from that in other literatures and have felt themselves bound toHellas on amore profound level. Fully aware of Anglo-Saxon warnings, by E. M. Butler and others, of the dangers inherent in that Graecophilia, Santini proposes to testher hypothesis on selected writers whom she regards as exemplary for theperiod under consideration (a decision that accounts for the otherwise surprising omission of such writers as Ilse Langner and Johannes R. Becher). The common denominator is their recourse toHellenistic mythology in the attempt to come togrips symbolically with thepresent. Santini first takes up a variety of autobiographical (e.g. JosefGoebbels, Viktor Klemperer, Ernst Jiunger) and non-fictional (e.g. Oswald Spengler, Alfred Rosen berg,Werner Jaeger) texts before engaging inChapter 3with narrative prose. That she isconcerned herewith Greek 'structure' rather than specific textual or ideological models is indicated by theworks considered: Mann's Joseph und seineBriider; Frank Thiess's Das Reich der Ddmonen (an account of antiquity from pre-classical times to Justinian, which Thiess specifically called 'a purely historical work'); Broch's Der Versucher (sometimes called his 'Demeter' novel); and several others (Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Elisabeth Langgisser, Hans Erich Nossack, Anna Seghers, Friedo Lampe). The chapter on drama skips themost obvious example, Hauptmann's Atri dentetralogie (treated exhaustively inher dissertation), todeal with severalworks that, strictly speaking, falloutside theparameters of her title:E. W. Moeller's Douaumont oder dieHeimkehr des Soldaten Odysseus (I 929), Brecht's Antigone ( 948), and others. The concluding chapter on lyricpoetry briefly considers poems byOskar Loerke and i i68 Reviews Langga'sser before turning foran exhaustive analysis toBenn's Vj7ahrhundert-works inwhich modern man's spiritual distance from antiquity has liberated Greek myth for freeuse. Because her goal ismore evidently theoretical-to characterize theGerman sense of privileged identitywith Greek antiquity-than critical,most of the examples are treated cursorily to illustrate aspects of German Graecophilia. Notable exceptions are the detailed explications of Broch's 'Demeter' novel and Benn's V Jahrhundert (which makes itall themore surprising thatSantini does not point to the central role ofDemeter in both works). While making scrupulous use of the secondary sources, Santini goes on inboth cases to reach persuasive new conclusions (e.g. on the signi ficance ofBenn's title). This sophisticated work of reception theory and history demonstrates through its exposure of an underlying mythopoeic impulse a significant factoruniting...