Aufbruch ins Weite

The poet Rainer Maria Gerhardt (1927–1954), who died young, was a solitaire. At a time when West German literature was only hesitantly discovering the new, he revealed unknown horizons. His translations and publishing projects presented post-war Germans with poetry from all parts of the world. Gerhardt's lyrical work interweaves numerous languages and cultures, but its avant-garde style met with incomprehension from the public. In its polyphony and hyperculturality, its cosmopolitan visions, this poetry is unique in post-war Germany. Its close-knit intertextuality has hardly been analysed by researchers so far. This study remedies this desideratum.