ABSTRACT
In the twentieth century, German literature of revolt and resignation, of terror and despair, is so various in character, and of such intimidating bulk, that it defies concise definition. A preoccupation with death, a mordant cynicism, a lingering on war and its aftermath—these are saliencies of the age. Very few recent German, Byronic books were not shaped beneath the aegis either of Mors, Momus or Mars. If much of Klabund's work stands beneath the sign of Mors and Momus, he was polytheist enough to pay tribute to Mars as well. Perhaps the greatest Byronic figure in German literature of the 'twenties, was the Swabian, Hermann Hesse. Rilke might have developed into a notable Byronic figure. From 1918 until the middle 'twenties, amid the wretchedness of inflation, and all the aggravations that attended internal reconstruction, the stage was set in Germany for a new Byronic literature of uncompromising intensity.
