Secret Germany: Stefan George and His Circle

Description

Stefan George (1868–1933) was one of the most important and influential poets to have written in German. His work, in its originality and impact, easily ranks with that of Goethe, Holderlin, or Rilke. Yet George's reach extended far beyond the sphere of literature. Particularly during his last three decades, George gathered around himself a group of men who subscribed to his homoerotic and idiosyncratic vision of life and sought to transform that vision into reality. George considered his circle to be the embodiment and defender of the "real" but "secret" Germany, opposed to the false values of contemporary bourgeois society. Some of his disciples, friends, and admirers were themselves historians, philosophers, and poets. Their works profoundly affected the intellectual and cultural attitudes of Germany's elite during the critical postwar years of the Weimar Republic. Essentially conservative in temperament and outlook, George and his circle occupy a central, but problematic, place in the rise of proto-fascism in Germany. Their own surrogate state offered a miniature model of a future German state: enthusiastic followers submitting themselves without question to the figure and will of a charismatic leader believed to be in possession of mysterious, even quasi-divine, powers.When he died several months after the Nazi takeover, George was one of the most famous and revered figures in Germany. Today the importance of George and his circle has largely been forgotten. In this, the first full biography of George to appear in any language, Robert E. Norton traces the poet's life and rise to fame. Contents Preface I. POET: 1868–1899 1. Beginnings 2. School 3. First Travels 4. Paris 5. Berlin 6. Hymns 7. Pilgrimages 8. A Child in Pale Blue Clothes 9. Algabal the Decadent 10. Pages for Art 11. Forging Alliances 12. Becoming German 13. A Group Is Formed 14. Schwabing 15. A Usable Past 16. The Year of the Soul 17. Going Public 18. The Tapestry of Life Illustrations II. PEDAGOGUE: 1900–1908 19. The Disciple 20. The Anthologies 21. The Cosmic Circle 22. Boys: Good, Bad, and Divine 23. Maximin 24. The Seventh Ring Illustrations III. POLITICIAN: 1909–1918 25. Admission to the Order 26. The Fuhrer and His Reich 27. The Globe Room 28. Secret Germany 29. After the Yearbook 30. Heidelberg 31. The Star of the Covenant 32. Legends of Summer 33. The War and Secret Germany 34. Surviving Illustrations IV. PROPHET: 1919–1933 35. Revolution I 36. Treason 37. Regrouping 38. Revival 39. The Time of Tents 40. Stupor Mundi 41. The New Reich 42. Fame 43. Apotheosis 44. Revolution II 45. Epilogue Abbreviations Notes Selected Bibliography Acknowledgments Index