ABSTRACT
In my examination of the early prose writings of Holz and Schlaf I suggested that the achievement of the style which the two writers employed was to give direct expression to the anxiety experienced in the face of a world which can be understood in precise, scientific detail, but whose overall purpose or shape cannot be comprehended. This style involved the accurate reproduction of everyday speech, and the precise inventory of physical detail; in his early theory Holz rationalized this into the doctrine of mimetic naturalism. But as Holz turned his attention to the more evidently personal genre, the lyric, it became increasingly apparent that he felt the need of this newly-won precision to express his own individual and unique sensations; he began to make the same demands on language as were made by Rilke in Das Stundenbuch:
Ich glaube an alles noch nie Gesagte. Ich will meine frömmsten Gefühle befrein.
