A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/81099 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications EXPERIENCE AND ITS ARTICULATION: mE QUESTION OF FORM IN mE POETRY OF ERNST TOUER submitted by James Anthony Jordan B.A. P. G. C.E. for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Warwick Department of German Studies August 1994 Table of contents Page Acknowledgements 4 Summary 5 Abbreviations 6 Introduction 7 Chapter 1: From love to war: the early unpublished poeUy (1908-1915) 12 1.1 Early love poems from Marbach 1.2 Early love poems from Koblenz 1.3 'Zum Siegen oder Sterben': three poems by the war enthusiast Chapter 2: The early Expressionist (1915-1919) 38 2.1 Doubt and disillusionment with the war 2.2 Opposition to the war 2.2.1 Unpublished poetry 2.2.2 Published poems 2.3 Early poems related to Die Wandluna: 2.3.1 'Aufriittelung', 'Der Ringende' and 'Der Entwurze1te' 2.3.2 Poems from Koblenz related to Die Wandluna: 2.3.3 'An die Sprache' and 'Anklag ich Euch' 2.4 ToUer's development from the early poetry to Die Wandluna: Chapter 3: The sonnets: a return to form (1919-1921) 82 3.1 The 'lakeside' sonnets 3.2 The Gedichte der Gefaoa:enen 3.2.1 Adjustment to prison conditions 3.2.2 Seclusion and inner life 3.2.3 Death 3.2.4 The outside world 3.2.5 Women in prison 3.2.6 Release 3.2.7 Form, theme and function in the Gedichte der Gefao&enen 2 Chapter 4: Pas Scbwalbenbuch (1922-1924) 130 4.1 The Schwa1benbuch as a document of experience 4.2 The natural order and human society 4.3 Secondary literature on Pas Schwalbenbuch 4.4 Form in Pas Schwalbenbuch Chapter 5: Yormor~n and the mature Expressionist poetry (1924=1938) 154 5.1 The Verse yom Friedhof and Zwei Iafeln 5 .1.1 Verses from the killing fields 5.1.2 Poems of political awakening 5.2 Lieder deI Gefan~en 5.3 Other late Expressionist poems Chapter 6: The demise of the poetry 187 Bibliography 211 Appendix 1: Alphabetical list of Toller's poetry 217 Appendix 2: Unpublished poems and those not readily accessible 234 3 Acknowled&cments Without the imperturbable patience of my supervisor, Stephen Lamb, this work would not have been possible over the period it eventually required, and his generosity with material found in various archives places me even further in his debt. Keith Bullivant, formerly Chairman of the Department of German Studies, was untiring in his encouragement, practical advice and in his support for research grants. For financial support for my research trips I am grateful to the British Academy and to the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. I have received kindness and co-operation from the following research institutions: the Akademie der Kiinste in Berlin, the Archiv fiir Arbeiterliteratur in Dortmund, the British Library, the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach am Neckar and the Staatsarchiv in Munich. Richard Parker, the German Librarian at the University of Warwick, has been of particular help in the location of materials. My personal thanks go to Anne Simon for her help and her confidence in my abilities. The last and most important mention is for my family, who have stood by me for eleven years without ever wavering in their faith in me. 4 Summary Emst Toller (1893-1939) wrote a substantial body of poetry which has received negligible critical attention. This thesis argues that the poetic styles he adopted enabled him not only to examine past experiences but also to evolve strategies for the challenges he faced. His early poetry (1908-1915) shows his attempts to come to terms with love and his enthusiasm to participate in the First World War. The poetry provided him with emotional models which were then revised in the light of experience. The early Expressionist poetry (1915-1919) documents his disillusionment with the war and furnishes insights into his growing political awareness. Toller then adopted the sonnet form (1919-1921), principally in order to express the vicissitudes of prison experience in a controlled manner, and this contributed to his adjustment to incarceration. Pas Schwalbenbuch (1922-1924) combines this formal control with a growing sensitivity to the potential of Expressionist verse and delivers insights into his metaphysical thinking. Yormor~en (1924) summarises his experience of war, revolution and imprisonment, in verse of considerable richness and suggestivity, indicating the positive values he intended to apply to his life on release. After its publication, Toller practically ceased to write poetry except for a very few isolated examples, one of which ('Am Flufi' , an unpublished poem) points to the possibility of a sixth and masterful poetic phase of which, apart from this one poem, there is no record. This study puts forward explanations for the apparent cessation of his poetry writing after 1924, arguing that his lyrical tendencies nonetheless found expression in his writing in other genres. The thesis provides an index of Toiler's entire poetic production and a collection of the unpublished poems and those no longer easily accessible. 5 Abbreyiations Appendix 2 of this thesis contains poems by ToIler which were either unpublished or which appeared in journals which are now not easily accessible to the general reader. [APP] ToIler, Aus~ewihlte Schriften. Heraus~~eben you der Deutschen Akadeplie der Kiinste zu Berlin, Berlin, 1961. [AS] ToIler, Gesa,mmelte Werke, ed. by Wolfgang Friihwald and John M. Spalek, Munich, 1978. [GW, with volume number in roman numerals] ToIler, Prosa Briefe Dramen Gedichte, Reinbek, 1979 (originally published in Hamburg, 1961). [PBDG] 6 Introduction Even for those who would consider themselves relatively well acquainted with his work, the mention of Ernst Toiler does not prompt the epithet poet. Political figure, playwright, essayist, orator - all of these descriptions suggest themselves more readily, as in a sense they should, for it is as a result of these activities that Toiler was most widely known amongst contemporaries and has been best remembered. Nonetheless he did write a substantial body of poetry, the collections Pie Gedjchte der Gefan~nen, Pas Schwalbenbuch and Vormor:en being the most notable. In addition he published many individual poems in journals at the forefront of Expressionism and Activism both before and during his five years in Bavarian custody. A further twenty-four manuscript poems held in the Peutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach am Neckar, the Archiv der Akademie der Kiinste in Berlin and the N.S.P.A.P.-Hauptarchiv in Kobleoz, amongst which are excellent poems providing fascinating insights into his life, have received no critical evaluation. The period of poetic production was highly condensed, coming effectively to an end with his release from prison in 1924, yet at least until the resounding success of his drama Die Wandlun& in 1919 Toiler had considered himself as a Diehter in the conventional sense of poet rather than man of letters. Nonetheless posterity has overlooked Toiler's poetry, more by default than intent. By the time Kurt Pinthus sought to provide an overview of Expressionist poetry in the anthology Menschheitdmmeruo& in 1920, Toiler had published just ten Expressionist poems and seven sonnets, six of which appeared later in the Gedjchte der Gefan&Men. Toiler's prison sonnet cycle was not published until 1921, when the vitality of Expressionist verse had begun to ebb, and his mature Expressionist works Pas Schwalbenbuch and the collection Yormor&en only appeared in 1924. These works achieved considerable popularity by dint of the quality of the verse, despite being written in a style which had passed the high water mark of its popularity by four, perhaps five years. This time lag is the result of Toiler's incarceration and consequent isolation from literary trends. The neglect of Toiler's poetry arises also from his almost complete failure to publish poetry after his release from prison in 1924. His poetic inactivity in the period up to the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 can be explained by reference to the overriding political imperatives of the period and by the fact that Toiler worked almost exclusively in other more politically effective modes such as journalism. It is unreasonable to expect there to have been any reappraisal of his poetry amongst exiles 7 in the period 1933-1945, even on the occasion of Toller's death in 1939, when obituaries stressed his activities in resisting Nazism rather than his work as a poet. This explanation for the non-inclusion of Toller in the canon of Expressionist poetry nonetheless begs the question as to why his poetic work was neglected even after the Second World War. This phenomenon can be accounted for in several ways. Firstly, a great deal of attention has been given in particular to Toller's early plays, which were undoubtedly influential on Expressionist drama in the immediate post-war period and articulated the hopes and disillusionments of his generation. A thesis on Toller's Expressionist dramas published in 1990 lists in its bibliography twenty-five selected critical publications on the theme. 1 In contrast, only two substantial pieces have ever been published on his poetry. 2 Secondly, at this time Toller came to be viewed as a political dramatist and, once this characterisation had taken hold, little consideration was given to a broader appreciation of his work.