Gottfried Benn

Gottfried Benn (May 2, 1886 in Mansfeld near Putlitz, Prignitz; July 7, 1956 in Berlin) was a German poet, essayist, and physician. He grew up as the son of a theologian in a rectory. After abandoning his theology studies, he successfully completed his medical studies. In 1912, his first volume of poetry, Morgue and Other Poems, was published. It caused a scandal due to its drastic choice of themes and casual expression and immediately made the author known as a representative of the newly emerging Expressionist poetry.

With the novella volume Brains, published in 1916, he made a significant contribution to Expressionist short prose. From then on, he pursued the civilizational critique of the Morgue poems in his essayistic work. In The Modern Self, he devoted himself to the question of the position of the individual in society.

Gottfried Benn is considered one of the most important German poets of modern literature. He first entered the literary scene as an Expressionist with his Morgue poems, which radically broke with conventional poetic traditions and strongly reflected impressions from his work as a doctor. Dissections and cancer and maternity wards are described with seemingly dispassionate nuance, and romantic titles like “Little Aster” arouse expectations that are then blatantly disappointed.

The rights to the work are now held by Klett-Cotta Verlag.

From the beginning, Benn wrote essayistic, poetically avant-garde, and autobiographical prose works. After 1945, he surprised the public with the novel Phenotype, on which he had been working since at least 1944.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Benn

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