Writers' Festival: German poet morally centered

German man of letters Hans Magnus Enzensberger does not mince words.

"Writers have no more moral authority than plumbers or butchers," Enzensberger declared June 7 at a Prague Writers' Festival discussion held at Nová scéna. The statement - partially in response to Egyptian author Bahaa Taher's impassioned plea for solidarity in response to the Israeli attack on an aid ship bound for Gaza May 31 - sparked one of the most animated discussions of the festival.

Several days later, Enzensberger talked with The Prague Post in the sunlit lobby of Hotel Josef, just hours before departing Prague to return to his home in Munich. Asked to elaborate on his opinions of literature's relationship to morality, Enzensberger cited one of the most famous Russian poets of the 20th century.

"Osip Mandelshtam said that attention is the main virtue and task of the writer. This is not a modest task. You have to take notice, use all your senses, and whatever intelligence you may possess should be brought to bear. A great writer can be a complete cad and still have that ability. Besides, looking at the record of what writers have historically been up to gives you a certain warning about the ethical credibility of the profession," he said.

Despite his deprecation, Enzensberger is certainly one of the most morally centered European writers to emerge since World War II. His writing achieves a difficult balance of political and emotional intelligence, a combination that has led many to compare Enzensberger with the great German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. Enzensberger, however, has largely avoided didacticism in favor of a more subtly suggestive tone than his predecessor.

As Germany emerged from World War II, Enzensberger - who was 16 years old in 1945 - achieved notoriety with his written attacks on German society for its refusal to confront its Nazi past. These early essays, and his first collection of poetry, In Defense of Wolves, published in 1957, established Enzensberger as one of Germany's leading cultural authorities.

"Because of the situation in Germany in 1945 and the years after, I took part in what you might call a sanitation job. It was a matter of simple hygiene, a vital reaction to the unbearable social situation," he said. "The German case is extreme, of course, but this is not a uniquely German problem. Here in the Czech Republic, there are also many things which need to be verified, so to speak."

Over the course of his career, Enzensberger has won most of the prestigious literary prizes Europe has to offer, including the 2009 Sonning Prize for commendable work for the benefit of European culture. Along the way, he has published more than 25 books of poetry, nonfiction, criticism, biography, essays, drama and even libretti. Such a varied bibliography attests to Enzensberger's wide range of intellectual interests as well as his tireless work ethic.

"I'm not talented for laziness, and I never admit boredom. Poetry is my nucleus, the hot stuff, and then there's a lot of periphery where things cool down, you might say," he said. "I don't want to be cast in the role of the poet who complains about his state in the world, that he's poor and not read enough."

For someone who considers himself a poet first and foremost, Enzensberger is refreshingly free of lament about the relative obscurity of poetry in contemporary society. Instead, he revels in poetry's minority status and says most poets have too narrow a conception of the craft.

"First of all, lamentation isn't healthy for anyone. The other thing is, while in terms of literature poetry is a minority practice, a society without minority opinions and eccentrics is simply not viable. But all of this is a parochial view of poetry. Every kid out there knows 200 pop songs by heart - and that is not prose," he said. "Even small children in kindergarten have their little verses. Poetry is an anthropological thing, like counting. We're programmed this way."

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com