Europakritik und die Alterung des abendländischen Typs in Gottfried Benns Werk

This article connects two complementary perspectives of Benn's poetics: his criticism of a 'Eurocentric' point of view in evaluating the historical-political facts of his time and his conviction that the Western world is affected by an unstoppable regressive process. This attitude, which is also rooted in his anthropological-scientific thinking, makes it possible to reconstruct certain moments of his literary activity, highlighting how - in his opinion - every form of teleological illusion supported by causal connections must be combated through the creative impetus of artistic 'expression'. In the first period, Benn stages figures of young people who oppose the political and scientific arrogance of their fathers' generation, representatives of a warmongering and hypocritical Wilhelmine mentality. As the analysis conducted here moves from early expressionism, in which the Alaska cycle of poems (1913) stands out, to the Dramendialoge of the last phase, we can see how the generational clash resolves itself in Die Stimme hinter dem Vorhang (1952) into a distancing from the participation in contemporary events by the new generation of 'fathers': the 'radar thinker' is a significant representative of this. He has long since abandoned the idea that man constitutes the crowning achievement of creation; he nourishes - even more than other figures, such as Rönne - his thinking with associative constructions. These are an excellent antidote against illusions of unity and fulfilment and, therefore, against an effective concern for any form of catastrophe.