PhD defence Nadja Hilgers: Das forschende Gedicht

Many studies about Ernst Meister's (1911-1979) poetry mention the intertextual references to Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. In her dissertation "Das forschende Gedicht. Über Ernst Meisters lyrischen Umgang mit Nietzsches Philosophie" ("The researching poem. About Ernst Meister's lyrical dealing with Nietzsche's philosophy"), Nadja Hilgers examines the traces, specifying Meister's kind of intertextuality and correcting some misunderstandings from older presentations. On 2 October she defends her dissertation at the University Hall.

Meister and Nietzsche

Meister was a philosophical poet. Since 1937, he had planned his PhD in which he would examine a recurring exceptional feature in Nietzsche's complete works: the topic area around truth, language and art. Meister did not complete his PhD but in each volume of poems there are references to the philosophical topic, altogether in 347 poems. Most of the references are not obvious because Nietzsche's words are changed and not marked as quotations. This accentuates the independence of Meister's work. 

Meister and Benn

Hilgers' dissertation examines the genesis of Meister's poems and volumes of poems. A comparison of Meister's and Gottfried Benn's poetry (Benn published poems with topic-comparable references to Nietzsche at the same time) shows the special quality of Meister's poetry. The examination of Meister's poems portrays the references and also explains each relevant poem individually. In the extensive appendix, some parts of the legacy are published for the first time.