Static poems (1948)

Statische Gedichte (lit. 'Static Poems') is a 1948 poetry collection by the German writer Gottfried Benn. It was well received by German critics and treated as the culmination of Benn's poetry. It had an influence on Martin Heidegger's late philosophy.

Reception

The book was very well received by German critics, who in many cases treated it as the pinnacle of Benn's poetry. The dominant view of German critics in the 1950s was that Benn had created his own path within modernist poetry, starting in expressionism and culminating with Statische Gedichte. An exception was Gottfried Willems, who argued that Statische Gedichte was a dead end, whereas Benn's poetry after it influenced the next generation of German poets, the Neue Lyrik of the 1960s.

Statische Gedichte influenced Martin Heidegger during his late period, when he became more interested in the poetic. According to Martin Travers, Heidegger was especially influenced by Statische Gedichte in his 1950 essay collection Off the Beaten Track and 1957 essay "Das Wesen der Sprache".