19 10, expressionist poets founded two publications, Storm and Action, in Berlin as theoretical positions of expressionist literature. Centered on Berlin, this literary trend of thought quickly spread to Leipzig, Munich and other cities. 1920, the publication of "The Hazy Age of Mankind", which included most outstanding expressionist poems, marked the peak of the development of expressionist poems.
Expressionism literature first appeared in the field of German poetry. Expressionist poetry pays attention to the poet's personal self-feeling and self-expression. The main content shows the poet's melancholy and sadness under the oppression of city life full of noise, chaos and sin, and calls for humanity and love while expressing social alienation. Poetry mostly reflects new stimuli in the form of freedom and strong sense of rhythm, and generally expresses the inner noise and irrational emotions of characters.
Influenced by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer's voluntarism, expressionist poets absorbed the concept of futurism to some extent, advocated destroying the existing order by violence, and emphasized the decisive role of subjective consciousness. But at the same time, it opposed the imperial war and preached humanitarianism. Linguistically speaking, the most striking feature of expressionist poetry is that it destroys traditional grammar, often omits verbs, articles and even subjects, and creates strange illusions by juxtaposing incoherent images.
Johannes becher
Johannes becher is the most important German expressionist poet and the representative of left-wing expressionism. In his early years, he joined the German Production Party. His early works include Collapse and Victory (19 14), which shows the collapse of the old world and the decline of the capitalist world. He destroyed the grammatical structure of German and adopted strange metaphors and grotesque images. Images such as "muscle blossom", "joint vibration", "bronze storm in the sky" and "sulfur smoke from the mouth" in the poem have opened up a new atmosphere for German poetry. After the October Revolution, becher joined the production movement in Eastern Europe, and his style also turned to classical metrical lyric poetry. From 65438 to 0945, he became the Minister of Culture of East Germany. His published works include Fighter (19 1 1) and Being Brothers (19 16). In his later years, he published a large number of theoretical works, including Defending Poetry (1952) and Principles of Poetry (1956).
Gottfried Benn
Gottfried Benn was born in a priest's family, and his exposure of the old world reached a shocking level. In his masterpiece "Couple Passing through the Cancer Ward", he regarded the world as a morgue and a cancer ward. Like Becher, Bain subverted the traditional grammatical structure and created new words in the language. This is both destructive and utopian. After the outbreak of World War II, Bain once supported the fascist regime and withdrew from the poetry circle after World War II. Important poetry collections include Poems of Moge et al. (19 12) and Meat: Poems (19 17).
George tracker
George Tracker was born into an Austrian merchant family. Different from the first two, Trakel's poems have obvious aesthetic and sad colors. His masterpiece "From the Abyss" first depicts the objective environment such as wheat fields that have been soaked by black rain, lonely black trees, the wind whistling around empty huts, and lonely girls picking up their ears near the village to project their feelings, and then directly describes them as far away from the gloomy shadow of the village, with cold metal foreheads. The spider looked for his heart and asked the angel for help in the wilderness. Trakel's works are not many. During the first world war, he was insane because he could not face the cruel battlefield, and then died of overdose.