| This dissertation explores history and memory as hermeneutical principles in the lyric poetry of Sarah Kirsch (born 1935 in East Germany). The introductory chapter discusses Kirsch's aesthetics of remembrance as an attempt to come to terms with Germany's recent past and with the question of how to respond aesthetically to the historical caesura implied by the Holocaust. I discuss Kirsch's poetry as a contribution to "Trauerarbeit" by drawing on Freud's and Adorno's essays; on Benjamin's concept of commemorative remembrance ("Eingendenken") and his "Angel of History;" and on Mitscherlichs' The Inability to Mourn. Furthermore, the introduction establishes a socio-historical, cultural-political and biographical background for Kirsch's texts.;Kirsch, having made her literary debut in the GDR among the avant-garde movement of poetry called the "Lyric Wave," was part of a generation of artists that insisted on subjectivity, self-consciousness, and a personal relationship to history and tradition. In spite of her difficulties with cultural policies, by 1969 Kirsch had emerged as one of this movement's foremost poets, recognized as such also in the West. Since Kirsch's move to West Germany (1977) after the Biermann affair, her concern with remembering Germany's political history has taken on a new urgency.;Chapters 2 to 9 are structured in chronological order of Kirsch's poetry and present a close reading of representative texts. Applying intertextuality, as defined by Kristeva in Die Revolution der poetischen Sprache, I examine connections between Kirsch's imagery and that of other writhers (e.g., Celan, Sachs, Bobrowski, Bachmann, Aichinger, Eich). Frequently allusions to literary works and historical events establish a context for Kirsch's ambiguous signification and her free space for mental associations. I address the role of the reader in her multi-layers, disharmonious, and cryptic texts, which encourage memory processes as well as a search for points of contact between past, present, and future. In chapter 8, theories by French feminist critics are applied to some representative poems, to show Kirsch'e exposure to the new women's movement in the West. As much as she rejects cultural feminism, she endorses the political emancipation of all humankind. |
