Benn und das fünfte Jahrhundert

„Irrationalism”, a fatally anti-modern devotion to the Dionysiac, has often been identified as a main component of the notorious „tyranny of Greece over Germany”. In its later shape as Nietzsche-imitation, it seems perfectly embodied in Gottfried Benn.s poetry of the twenties, as the very precondition of this poet.s political aberration in 1933 – when, by virtue of a turn towards Apolline measure, the German predicament might still have found a less gruesome issue (such was at least the hope of Thomas Mann). In view of this, it should be observed in the first place that Benn.s 1933 credo is in fact a resolutely anti-Dionysiac statement of the „Doric universe”; against this background, then, an exegesis of the lyric cycle V. Jahrhundert may be attempted. Tensions become visible, bordering on paradox: the absence of „Doric” references in the poems leads to a reflection on Benn.s response to Schillerian classicism, engaging the idea of „play” no less than the artistic shape of the cyclical work itself. As it turns out, for an adequate perception of this poetry marked by „hallucination and construction” to come about, one must be aware of Benn.s relationship to his friend, Carl Einstein.