- Paperback: 511 pages
- Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (18 Mar 2008)
- Language German
- ISBN-10: 0374530939
- ISBN-13: 978-0374530938
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.4 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 463,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An interesting choice of cover, especially given the editor and translator Michael Hofmann's praise for German poetry in his introduction on the grounds that so much of it addresses the world outside rather than being confined to the ivory tower. Certainly the twentieth century has marked German history in a number of ways, of which the Berlin Wall is one of the clearest symbols. Being one of those many English people who are mono-lingual and therefore dependant on translators, Michael Hofmann has become a translator I feel I can trust (although here he also reprints translations by other hands), one who possesses both the skill and taste for the works he translates, as is evident from his nicely polemical introduction.
If I have one criticism of this volume, it would be that that's all we get in the way of critical apparatus. Some of the poets I've encountered before, but many are previously unknown, and a little more biographical information on each poet than just their dates would have been a real help, especially in the later part of the book when German was divided (there's that wall again!). It's usually not too difficult to work out which side of the divide individual poets found themselves, but especially with poets represented sometimes by only a single poem, it can sometimes feel as if they are emerging from a void, with only Hofmann's introduction for guidance.
That aside, this is a magnificent collection, which whets one's appetite for more especially of those poets who are sometimes sparsly represented, which is surely evidence of a task successfully achieved. And it provides plenty of justification for Hofmann's provocative claim that Germany was one of *the* places for poetry in the twentieth century. Although I wonder if that is a claim which will stand up over the course of the twenty-first. It is of course very difficult to surmise from such a brief survey, and even the best critic is going to miss important work, especially when it is that published nearest to one's own time, but I couldn't help feeling the weakest, or perhaps just least significant, work in this collection came from the most recent poets. Which connects with that intersting choice of cover. Perhaps that wall, that history, was an important spur to great work which is now past.
If I have one criticism of this volume, it would be that that's all we get in the way of critical apparatus. Some of the poets I've encountered before, but many are previously unknown, and a little more biographical information on each poet than just their dates would have been a real help, especially in the later part of the book when German was divided (there's that wall again!). It's usually not too difficult to work out which side of the divide individual poets found themselves, but especially with poets represented sometimes by only a single poem, it can sometimes feel as if they are emerging from a void, with only Hofmann's introduction for guidance.
That aside, this is a magnificent collection, which whets one's appetite for more especially of those poets who are sometimes sparsly represented, which is surely evidence of a task successfully achieved. And it provides plenty of justification for Hofmann's provocative claim that Germany was one of *the* places for poetry in the twentieth century. Although I wonder if that is a claim which will stand up over the course of the twenty-first. It is of course very difficult to surmise from such a brief survey, and even the best critic is going to miss important work, especially when it is that published nearest to one's own time, but I couldn't help feeling the weakest, or perhaps just least significant, work in this collection came from the most recent poets. Which connects with that intersting choice of cover. Perhaps that wall, that history, was an important spur to great work which is now past.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A Fresh Look At Modern Poetry
2 Sep 2008
Format:Paperback
Michael Hofmann offers us a view of what is perhaps the most modern of all major contemporary poetries. Begining with Rilke he offers intellegent selections of the modern classics Trakl, Benn, Brecht and then provdes intreging selections of the generally less well known post war poets such as Huchel, Bobrowski, Eich and Bachmann. Of the two most famous poets of the fifties Celan and Enzensburger the first gets a sensible selection of early poetry while the latter recives a large and to me puzzling selection completely ignoring his beautiful collection Blindescrift and concentrating on rather trivial later poems. Many younger poets are represented though none seem to have voices as distinctive as their elders. All in all it is a fine introduction to one of the great bodies of modern poetry though I do not understand why the very fine poet Horst Bienek is excluded when a number of lesser talents are included. Well worth checking out.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
US Edition is best
2 Jan 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this from the UK because the edition published here doesn't include the poems in German. When I was in the US I discovered this edition in a bookshop and ordered another one for a Christmas present for someone else. Both of us are very pleased to have the book. Michael Hoffman is a first rate poet himself and a very good translator.
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