The poet Harald Hartung, himself an author of significant lyrical works, is also one of the best connoisseurs of lyric verse. His critiques set high standards. His essays and anthologies bring us closer to the voices of the world’s lyric poetry.
An »undertone of happiness« sounds through Hartung`s essays on poets and poetry. In an amusing way he shows us how boredom became the mother of all muses for Goethe, or how the steamship, marl-pit and intoxicated flood are connected in the works of Droste. He makes associations leading us from Alfred Brendel back to Erich Kästner. He reveals how the early Celan makes references to Trakl`s palette. Or Robert Schindel to Lethe and Memoria, Günter Kunert to a lost utopia. Hartung pushes ahead with the rediscovery of Ernst Meister and Ludwig Greve. In these odes he discovers a freedom that can be found only within the confines of such rigid structures. Not least, the lyricist Hartung speaks on his own account when he reflects upon the experience of writing.
»What is it that makes a work masterly? It is difficult to define, but when we see it before us, we recognise it. The masterly must give expression to the mood of its time it and yet rise above it. It must be surprising and yet self-evident.«
Michael Maar on Harald Hartung, FAZ
