Grünbein
[This page by Ruth J. Owen]
Durs Grünbein
Durs Grünbein (born in 1962) is a major German poet whose work first emerged in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) of the late 1980s. Initially its exposure to the reading public was curtailed by conditions of production and reception that saw Grünbein writing ‘underground’, in so-called ‘unofficial’ publications and small ‘samizdat’ magazines. The late, great playwright Heiner Müller helped facilitate the publication of Grünbein’s first book-length collection in the West, in 1988. It has often been said that Grünbein could not publish in the GDR at all, but this is not strictly the case, since some of his poems appeared in the flagship literary journal Sinn und Form in 1986. Nonetheless, Grünbein is a literary phenomenon of the post-1990 united Germany. His breakthough collection, the remarkably-titled Schädelbasislektion (Lesson at the Base of the Skull) of 1991, can be conceived of as a reckoning with the end of the GDR. This collection was followed by a prolific output of poetry collections, exploring a variety of lyric sub-genres, from epitaphs, satires and long poems, to libretti and haikus.
Grünbein is a master of the urban poem, including Berlin poems and Dresden poems, as well as urban travel poetry. He has composed extended, book-length cycles of poems that keep working away at one topic or focus, as well as snappy short lyrics that pack a punch and are gone. Some of the poetry which has received most critical attention has utilised anatomical description, and science more widely, to create illuminating reflections on the human condition. At the same time, allusion to German’s specfic history recurs through the oeuvre to date, from time to time haunting the lyric perspective.
Whilst his poetry perhaps constitutes the core of his literary project, Grünbein is also an essayist, diarist and translator; in addition, he has diversified into film scripting and theatre adaptations. Having won the revered Büchner prize for literature early in his career, not to mention countless other prizes, he has become admired for the learnedness of his writing. Notwithstanding its engagement with literary traditions, Grünbein’s work is at the same time justifiably known for the debunking wit he brings to poetry. The poetry is well known in Germany for its inventiveness and increasingly recognised internationally too, even being tipped for future Nobel glory. Grünbein is a contemporary world poet to watch.
Main works by Durs Grünbein
Grauzone morgens: Gedichte (1988); Grey Zone, Dawn: Poems
Schädelbasislektion: Gedichte (1991); Lesson at the Base of the Skull: Poems
Den Teuren Toten: 33 Epitaphe (1994); To the Dear Departed: 33 Epitaphs
Falten und Fallen: Gedichte (1994); Folding and Falling: Poems
Galilei vermißt Dantes Hölle und bleibt an den Maßen hängen: Aufsätze 1989-1995 (1996); Galileo gets stuck measuring Dante’s Hell: Essays
Nach den Satiren: Gedichte (1999); After the Satires: Poems
Das erste Jahr: Berliner Aufzeichnungen (2001); The First Year: Notes from Berlin
Erklärte Nacht: Gedichte (2002); Night Defined: Poems
Una Storia Vera: Ein Kinderalbum in Versen (2002); Una Storia Vera: A Children’s Album in Verse
Warum schriftlos leben (2003); Why Live without Writing
Vom Schnee oder Descartes in Deutschland (2003); On Snow or Descartes in Germany
An Seneca. Postskriptum (2004); To Seneca. A Postscript
Von ganzem Herzen (2004); With All My Heart
Berenice, Libretto nach Berenice von Edgar Allan Poe (2004); Libretto after Berenice by Edgar Allan Poe
Antike Dispositionen (2005); Antic Dispositions
Porzellan: Poem vom Untergang meiner Stadt (2005); Porcelain: Poem on my City’s Destruction
Der Misanthrop auf Capri (2005); The Misanthrope on Capri
Gedicht und Geheimnis: Aufsätze 1990-2006 (2007); Secrets and Poems: Essays
Strophen für übermorgen (2007); Stanzas for the Day after Tomorrow
Der cartesische Taucher (2008); The Cartesian Diver
Lob des Taifuns: Reisetagebücher in Haikus (2008); In Praise of the Typhoon: Travel Diaries in Haikus
Die Bars von Atlantis: Eine Erkundung in vierzehn Tauchgängen (2010); The Bars of Atlantis: An Investigation in Fourteen Dives
Aroma: Ein römisches Zeichenbuch (2010); Aroma: A Roman Sketchbook
English Translations
‘Mantegna, Perhaps’, Times Literary Supplement No. 5015 (1999)
‘Readings - Useful Illusions’, Harper's (July 2002)
‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Border Dog’, Literary Review (Fall 2004)
Ursula Keller, and Ilma Rakusa (eds.), Writing Europe: What Is European About the Literatures of Europe? Essays from 33 European Countries (2004)
Ashes for Breakfast: Selected Poems, trans. by Michael Hofmann (2005)
The Bars of Atlantis: Selected Essays, ed. by Michael Eskin, trans. by John Crutchfield, Michael Hofmann and Andrew Shields (2010)
Descartes' Devil: Three Meditations, trans. by Anthea Bell (2010)
Further Reading in English
Ian Cooper, ‘Direction, Disruption, Voice: Durs Grünbein’s “Historien” and “Neue Historien”’, Germanic Review 84:2 (2009), 99-121
Amir Eshel, ‘Diverging Memories? Durs Grünbein’s Mnemonic Topographies and the Future of the German Past’, German Quarterly 74:4 (2001), 407-16
Michael Eskin, Poetic Affairs: Celan, Grünbein, Brodsky (Stanford University Press, 2008)
Michael Eskin, ‘Bridge to Antiquity: Nostalgia, Exile and Stoicism in the Poetry of Durs Grünbein’, Arcadia 39 (2004), 356-81
Michael Eskin, ‘Stimmengewirr vieler Zeiten: Grünbein’s Dialogue with Dante, Baudelaire and Mandelstam’, Germanic Review 77 (2002), 34-50
Michael Eskin, ‘Body Language: Durs Grünbein’s Aesthetics’, Arcadia 37:1 (2002), 42-66
Michael Eskin, Karen Leeder, Christopher Young (eds.), Durs Grünbein: A Companion (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013)
Anne Fuchs, ‘Cultural Topography and Emotional Legacies in Durs Grünbein’s Dresden Poetry’, in Debating German Cultural Identity since 1989, ed. by Anne Fuchs, Kathleen James-Chakraborty and Linda Shortt (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2011), pp.184-204
Karen Leeder (ed.), Flaschenpost: German Poetry and the Long Twentieth Century, special issue of German Life and Letters 60 (2007)
Karen Leeder, ‘Cold media: the Poetry of Science and the Science of Poetry’, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 30:4 (2005), 301-11
Karen Leeder, Breaking Boundaries: A New Generation of Poets in the GDR (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
Ruth J. Owen, ‘Bodies in Contemporary Poetry’, German Monitor 69 (2007), special issue Schaltstelle: Neue deutsche Lyrik im Dialog, ed. Karen Leeder (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 269-91
Ruth J. Owen, ‘Eine im Feuer versunkene Stadt: Dresden in Poetry’, Gegenwartsliteratur 1 (2002), 87-106
Ruth J. Owen, ‘Science in Contemporary Poetry: A Point of Comparison between Raoul Schrott and Durs Grünbein’, German Life and Letters 54 (2001), 82-96
Ruth J. Owen, ‘The Beginning of a Role: Durs Grünbein’s post-Wende Poetry’, in The Poet’s Role: Lyric Responses to German Unification by Poets from the GDR (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2001)
Further Reading in German
Daniele Vecchiato, ‘Nachlassbewusstsein in der Gegenwartsliteratur: Notizen zu einer Archivexpedition im Vorlass von Durs Grünbein’, German Life and Letters 70:2 (2017), 262-83
Web Links in English
Durs Grünbein lecture series in May 2019 at St Anne's College, University of Oxford
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/article/238634
'Why live without writing', article by Durs Grünbein
http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/2212/19/Durs-Grunbein
Resources on Durs Grünbein
http://www.goethe.de/ins/au/lp/prj/bkm/rev/aut/gru/enindex.htm
Review of Durs Grünbein, Ashes for Breakfast: Selected Poems
Web Links in German
https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/utero-70
Durs Grünbein reads his poems aloud
Interview with Durs Grünbein on the language of the AfD, 5 June 2018
