Following World War II, German-speaking authors have been challenged
above all in two ways: historically-politically to the Holocaust and
stylistically to surrealism. In this respect, the poetological discourse
has concentrated on the meaning and function of literature with regard
to the question of metaphor and its possible reference to recent
history: How can the inhumanity of National Socialism be described? What
role does the metaphor play in the new definition of the relationship
between literature and historical events? Is the metaphor an aesthetic
digression or the most direct means of expressing the uncertain limits
of the describable? The volume analyses these questions by examining the
positions of Lehmann, Krolow, Celan, Bachmann, Weiss, Grass, Ruhmkorf,
Hartling and Enzensberger.