Das forschende Gedicht. Über Ernst Meisters lyrischen Umgang mit Nietzsches Philosophie

Abstract

The doctoral thesis "Das forschende Gedicht. Über Ernst Meisters lyrischen Umgang mit Nietzsches Philosophie" ("The researching poem, About Ernst Meister's lyrical dealing with Nietzsche's philosophy") examines first parts of Ernst Meister's (1911-1979) legacy (letters, books, study and adult education materials) to describe Meister's extensive dealing with Nietzsche's philosophy for at least 48 years with the main emphasis on his attempt to do a doctorate on it, and second all of Meister's poems published officially during his lifetime to show references on his dissertation topic in his poetry. In his dissertation project, "Schiff und Flut ‒ Über eine Bilddominante bei Nietzsche" ("Ship and Tide, About a dominant image in Nietzsche's work"), Meister examined a continuity in Nietzsche's complete work (at that time a new scientific approach) by a recurring exceptional feature, the topic area about truth, language, and art. 347 of Meister's poems refer to this topic area. This is almost half of all the officially published poems. So the significance of the intertextual references to Nietzsche and the connection between Meister's philosophical work and his poetry are proven. But because the poems are written not only after he dropped the dissertation, but also before and while he worked on it, it is also proven that the poetry is not a substitute but an autonomous medium for Meister. Form (markings, conciseness and kind of source), content and function of the references (including Meister's statement to Nietzsche's philosophy) are clearly explained quantitatively and qualitatively by exemplary poems, describing the special kind of intertextuality in Meister's examining and teaching philosophical poems. The results of the research are further confirmed by the genesis of the poems, the multiple publications and the compilation of the volumes of poems. That Meister's kind of intertextuality is extraordinary for his time is proved by a comparison with Gottfried Benn, another author who lived at the same time and referred to the same part of Nietzsche's philosophy. In the glossary at the end of the work there are individual explanations of all the examined poems with regard to the intertextual references to Nietzsche for in-depth reading, and in the appendix there are amongst other materials the dissertation typescripts (in a smoothed form) for further research. The explanation of the philosophical topic is based on the critical study edition by Colli and Montinari (1999) and the study of the poems on the text-critical and annotated edition of all poems officially published during his lifetime, edited by Gellhaus, Jordans and Lohr in 2011, supplemented by first editions of Meister's poems. The used methodology is based on Herrmann's Meister-specific concept of intertextuality (2007) which is reflected and specified in terms of Meister's references to the examined philosophical topic.