ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the 1960s, the "late period" of Erich Arendt's lyrical creativity, the material of Greek mythology, which previously had made only an occasional appearance in his work, became the central component of his poetical language. In the early poems an identification of the author with Odysseus/Ulysses was recognizable, a biographical identification traceable to Arendt's own Odyssey of exile; but a change of perspective takes place. This chapter investigates poems in which the figures of Homer and Odysseus are central to Erich Arendt's poetics. Since it will appear that even Odysseus, a figure previously conceived in optimistic terms, is brought to utter collapse, the image of the "angel of history", one of the central metaphors of Erich Arendt's lyric poems, will be traced through his works in order to clarify his perspective on history.
