STEFAN GEORGE German Text GEORGE-KREIS 2 Vol Symbolism Mysticism Art Culture

  
Stefan George und sein Kreis: Ein Handbuch BAND 1 & BAND 2. Aurnhammer, Achim; Braungart, Wolfgang; Breuer, Stefan; Oelmann, Ute. Published by De Gruyter, 2012. Very good hardcovers, no dustjackets as issued.

Tight bindings, solid spines, clean unmarked texts. 2 Volumes- Volume 1 & 2 only (lacking vol 3). 4to, 508 pages & 1246 pages. Stefan Anton George was a German symbolist poet and a translator of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Hesiod, and Charles Baudelaire. He is also known for his role as leader of the highly influential literary circle called the George-Kreis and for founding the literary magazine Blätter für die Kunst [de] ("Journal for the Arts").

From the inception of his circle, George and his followers represented a literary and cultural revolt against the literary realism trend in German literature during the last decades of the German Empire. Das Handbuch stellt Leben und Werk Stefan Georges umfassend dar und behandelt die internen Vernetzungen seines Kreises sowie seine externe Rezeption. Erstmals liegt damit ein verlässliches Kompendium für die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit Stefan George und seinem Kreis vor.

Die Forschung wird kritisch gesichtet, und Desiderate werden markiert; die bio-bibliographischen Grundlagen werden neu gesichert und zahlreiche Rezeptionszeugnisse erstmals ausgewertet. Dem Wirken Georges und seines Kreises, das in vielfältige Bereiche des geistig-kulturellen, wissenschaftlichen und politischen Lebens ausstrahlte, entspricht das interdisziplinäre und diskursgeschichtlich orientierte Konzept des Handbuchs, das Literatur- und Sozialwissenschaft, Politologie und Geschichte ebenso einschließt wie Kunst- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Das Handbuch umfasst vier Teile: Der erste Teil ist Georges Werk und seinem Kreis gewidmet; der zweite behandelt systematische Aspekte wie'Traditionsverhalten' oder'Zeitkritik und Politik'; der dritte erschließt die Wirkung des George-Kreises; der vierte bietet anhand von 158 Personenartikeln erstmals eine vollständige Kartierung der Personen, Bünde und Kreise um George. The handbook presents the life and work of Stefan George comprehensively and deals with the internal networks of his circle as well as his external reception. For the first time there is a reliable compendium for the scientific discussion of Stefan George and his circle.

Research is critically scrutinized and desiderata are marked; the bio-bibliographical bases are re-secured and numerous reception certificates are evaluated for the first time. The interdisciplinary and discourse-historically oriented concept of the handbook, which includes literary and social science, political science and history as well as art and scientific history, corresponds to the work of George and his circle, which radiated into diverse areas of intellectual-cultural, scientific and political life.

The handbook consists of four parts: the first part is dedicated to George's work and his circle; the second deals with systematic aspects such as'traditional behavior' or'contemporary criticism and politics'; the third opens up the action of the George circle; the fourth, based on 158 personal articles, offers for the first time a complete mapping of the people, leagues and circles around George. Stefan George, along with Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Rainer Maria Rilke one of the pre-eminent German poets of the twentieth century. He also had an important, albeit controversial and provocative role in German cultural history. It is generally agreed that he played a significant part in the transition of German literature to Modernism, particularly in poetry. At the same time he was an outspoken critic of modernity.

He believed that only an all-encompassing cultural renewal could save modern man. Although George is often linked with the l'art pour l'art movement, and although his artistic consciousness was formed by European aestheticism, his poetry and the writings that emerged from the poets and intellectuals he gathered around him in the George Circle are above all a scathing commentary on the political, social, and cultural situation in Germany at the turn of the century. George, who was imbued with the idea of the poet as a prophet and priest, saw himself as the Messiah of a New Hellenism and a New Reich led by an intellectual and aesthetic elite consisting of men who were bonded together through their allegiance to a charismatic leader. Some of the values that George proclaimed, among them a glorification of power, of heroism and self-sacrifice, were seized upon by the National Socialists, and subsequently his writings and those of his circle were considered by some to be proto-fascist. It did not help his reputation that after the Second World War much of the criticism of his works was practiced by uncritical, hagiographic George worshippers.

In recent years, however, there has been a renewed and unbiased interest among scholars and critics in George and his circle. STEFAN GEORGE German Text GEORGE-KREIS 2 Vol Symbolism Mysticism Art Culture.