ABSTRACT
Kraus belongs to a generation of poets who challenged traditional aesthetics by giving poetry a political function. The writers of the Weimar Republic, from Bert Brecht and Kurt Tucholsky to Erich Kästner and Walter Mehring, used a variety of verse forms to ridicule the bourgeoisie and discredit the nationalists, combining the radicalism of Marx with the irony of Heine. At first sight it may seem that Kraus adopted a more traditional stance, defending the aesthetics of Goethe against the onslaughts of modernism. He certainly denounced the poetry of Heine as frivolous and facile. But Kraus’s hostility to Heine should not lead us to overlook the similarities between the two—and the possibility that Kraus, as a satirical poet, owed Heine a significant debt.
