Grünbein and Kaschnitz
the cities of Dresden and Hiroshima between memory, historical guilt and poetry
Abstract
This paper offers a comparative analysis between Durs Grünbein’s cycle of poems Europa nach dem letzten Regen and Marie Luise Kaschnitz’s poem Hiroshima (1951). Both authors are brought together by the topoi of collective memory and historical guilt. These topics build the ideological and discursive structure of both poems: Dresden was bombed by the allies on February 13-15, 1945, and Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. The two cities represent the so called Erinnerungsräume, places of memory, and both Grünbein and Kaschnitz try to preserve this memory from its oblivion through poetry, that is considered a mnemonic space where the authors can think about the importance of the past and the complex human nature.
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