Jenseits der Literatur. Oxford Lectures

In his four lectures, which he gave in Oxford as part of the Lord Weidenfeld Lectures in 2019, poet Durs Grünbein explores a topic that has preoccupied him since the moment he began to understand his own position as historical: in his nation’s timeline, inside his language community and in his family. How can it be that HISTORY, a fetish of the humanities since the times of Hegel and Marx, determines the individual’s imagination even in its privatest corners, even during playful poetic inspiration? Should not poetry look at the world with its own, independent eyes instead?