PETER LANG - International Academic Publishers
are pleased to announce a new book by
--------------------------------------------
Richard Millington
SNOW FROM BROKEN EYES
Cocaine in the Lives and Works of Three Expressionist Poets
Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2012. 341 pp.
Australian and New Zealand Studies in German Language and Literature. Vol. 20
General Editor: Gerhard Schulz
pb. ISBN 978-3-0343-1069-7
CHF 88.00 / €(D) 67.20 / €(A) 69.10 / € 62.80 / £ 57.00 / US-$ 94.95
€(D) includes VAT - only valid for Germany / €(A) includes VAT - only valid for Austria
The highpoint of German Expressionism in the second decade of the 20th century coincided with a rapid increase in the availability of cocaine as the drug was stockpiled for medical purposes by armies fighting the First World War. “Snow from Broken Eyes” investigates the implications of this historical intersection for the lives and works of three poets associated with Expressionism: Gottfried Benn, Walter Rheiner and Georg Trakl. All three are known to have used the drug during the War, although under very different circumstances, and the cocaine references contained in their works are equally diverse. These range from demonstrative declarations of drug use (Benn), via agonized textual re-enactments of the addict’s humiliation and suffering (Rheiner), to the integration of drug symbolism into an original, deeply resonant poetic code (Trakl). In this study, the findings arising from close readings of key works by Benn, Rheiner and Trakl are contextualized in relation both to the longstanding historical association between psychoactive substances and imaginative literature, and to the radical innovations in literary style that characterized the early 20th century.
Contents:
A condensed literary history of cocaine – Reading cocaine: methodological considerations – Gottfried Benn’s toxicology of genius – The poems and plays of Benn’s «episode with cocaine» – Walter Rheiner: archetype of the Expressionist addict – Rheiner’s master narrative of addiction – Georg Trakl: an Austrian drug-eater – The poems of Trakl’s cocaine period – Trakl’s poetics of intoxication – Snow symbolism in Trakl’s poetry.
Richard Millington is a Lecturer in German at the School of Languages and Cultures, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
---------------------------------------------------------------
You can order this book online. Please click on the link below:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Direct order:
http://www.peterlang.com?431069
-------------------------------------------------------------
Or you may send your order to:
---------------------------------------------------------------
PETER LANG AG
International Academic Publishers
Moosstrasse 1
P.O. Box 350
CH-2542 Pieterlen
Switzerland
Tel +41 (0)32 376 17 17
Fax +41 (0)32 376 17 27
e-mail:
mailto:[log in to unmask]
Internet:
http://www.peterlang.com
|