1907年2月1日生在奧得河（Oder River）畔的萊布斯（Lebus）。父親原為農莊管理員，後在柏林開設稅務法律顧問事務所。1925年進入柏林大學學習漢學，並開始創作詩歌。

簡介

岡特·艾希（Günter Eich）（1907.2.1- 1972.12.20）德國詩人、劇作傢。

生平

1927至1931年 萊比錫、巴黎和柏林選修法學和漢學。

1929年 發表第一部廣播劇《歌唱傢卡魯索的生與死》(與拉斯剋合寫)。

1930年 第一部《詩集》出版。

1931年 開始為電臺編寫廣播劇。第二次世界大戰爆發後，被徵入伍。

1945年在前綫為美軍所俘。

1946年 獲釋，定居巴伐利亞州，從事文學創作，成為“四七社”最早的成員之一，也是“四七社奬金”的第一個獲得者。

1953年 與奧地利女作傢艾興格結婚。

1963年遷居奧地利。

1972年12月20日在薩爾茨堡病逝。

主要成就

艾希的主要成就是1945年以後創作的詩和廣播劇。

1956年曾獲得畢希納文學奬金。

岡特·艾希(1907-1972)德國當代著名廣播劇作傢兼詩人。1997年首次發表詩作。第二次世界大戰中應徵入伍，後被俘，其間寫了不少詩歌。獲釋後接連發表詩集，不久便蜚聲文壇，成為著名詩人。他是西德文學團體“四七社”的成員之一，曾獲多種文學奬。艾希早年寫的詩歌主要記錄自己的經歷，彌漫着淡淡的哀愁，也有的意象比較奇特，流於晦澀。戰後，他的詩作面嚮現實，語言簡潔明了，開了“砍光伐淨”的一代詩風。後期的詩歌不尚韻律，趨嚮口語化。主要詩集有《偏僻的農傢院落》(1948)、《地下鐵道》(1949)、《雨的消息》(1955)和《詩選》(1960)等等。

作品風格

艾希早年的詩歌主要記錄自己的經歷，彌漫着淡淡的哀愁。戰後，他的詩作面嚮現實，語言簡潔明了，開一代詩風。後期詩歌不尚韻律，趨嚮口語化。艾希在作品中譴責世間一切不公平的、強暴的、罪惡的行為，呼籲人們在幸福中不忘世上還有疾苦。出版的主要詩集有《偏僻的小農莊》(1948)、《地下鐵道》(1949)、《雨的音信》(1955)等。《清單》(1945)一詩，通過個人的貧睏狀況含蓄地勾勒出戰後德國一片荒蕪的情景，是西德戰後“廢墟文學”的代表作之一。  

Life

Eich made his first appearance in print with some poems in the Anthology of the Latest Poetry. His first radio play, written in collaboration with Martin Raschke, was performed in 1929. From 1929–1932, Eich lived as a freelance writer in Dresden, Berlin, and on the Baltic coast, writing mainly for the radio. From 1939–1945, Eich served in the German army in a signals unit. In 1945 he was held as a war prisoner in an American internment camp, and in 1946 he was released and moved to Geisenhausen in Bavaria. After being held as a prisoner of war, he was one of the founders in 1947 of Gruppe 47, and for poems in his then unpublished Abgelegene Gehöfte, he was one of the first two recipients, in 1950, of its Literature Prize for young writers. In 1953, he married the Jewish Austrian writer Ilse Aichinger. Their son Clemens was born on 22 May 1954, and their daughter Mirjam was born in 1958.

He continued to publish prose, poetry, and radio plays over the rest of his life. Eich died in Salzburg in 1972.

Writing

Weimar era (1929-1932)

Eich was a contributor to Ana Victoria, a literary magazine. "Die Kolonne" is seen as a reaction against contemporary Modernist literary trends, and rests on three central principles: "the essential timelessness of the inner life, the notion of the genius as representative of his age, and the religious function of art." Eich believed in a fundamental incompatibility between poetry and politics and in his essay, "Bemerkungen über Lyrik", he drew a line between the poet "als Lyriker" and "als Privatmann" which allows poets to be politically active as long as it does not impinge on their work.

Eich is regarded as a literary conservative and his public association with a staunchly critical review of Johannes R. Becher's poem "Der Große Plan" attests to this. According to Cuomo, "The most fitting overall characterisation of '[Die Kolonne]' would not be liberal or progressive, but conservative." "Die Kolonne" was strongly representative of Eich's own aesthetic and ideological views, and although largely apolitical, it appeared to favor conservative ideology. Despite this apparent conservatism, the journal aimed to separate literature from any political influence.

Nazi Germany (1933-1945)

The majority of Eich's literary output in this period were radio plays, which numbered 160. The most well known of these today is Rebellion in der Goldstadt, which was only recently discovered. The play was broadcast on 8 May 1940 in an anti-British radio campaign the Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry was waging. It deals with a South African mine and its workers striking against the poor wages they receive from the overtly capitalist British owner, Lord Pembroke. There is some contention surrounding Eich's complete authorship of the play as there is no broadcast text in his handwriting.

Response to the Machtergreifung

On 1 May 1933 Eich applied for membership in the Nazi Party but was not accepted.

After the war, Eich made many public statements about the role of artists in standing up against oppressive regimes: "If our work cannot be understood as criticism, as opposition and resistance, [...] then we are positive and decorate the slaughterhouse with geraniums." and "Seid unbequem, seid Sand, nicht das Öl im Getriebe der Welt!" which translates as "Be inconvenient, be sand, not oil in the gears of the world!"

These statements, however, stand in stark contrast to his actions during the Nazi era. His radio plays were often tailored to fit the propaganda needs of the Nazi party, extolling the Blut und Boden rural life and denouncing the decadent capitalism of the regime's enemies. It is believed that Eich had pragmatic reasons for writing all of his radio plays:

Eichs Rundfunktätigkeit beschränkte sich auf den Hörspielbereich und diente dem Broterwerb. [...] Wie viele Hörspiele, Märchenbearbeitungen, Kalenderblätter Eich auch schrieb, niemals hat er damit «Karriere« gemacht.

Eich's broadcasting activity was limited to radio plays and breadwinning. Like many of the radio plays, fairy tale adaptation and calendar pages that Eich also wrote he never tried to 'make a career' out of it.

His collected works were published in four volumes in 1991.

James Dickey opened his 1965 poem "The Firebombing," about a nighttime air raid on the Japanese town of Beppu, with this epigraph from Eich's work:

Denke daran, dass nach den großen Zerstörungen

Jedermann beweisen wird, dass er unschuldig war.

roughly:

Think of this: that after the great destructions

every man will attest that he was innocent.

Literary prizes

Eich received numerous literary prizes after World War II, including one from the literary association of which he was a member, Gruppe 47, in 1950. In 1953, he won the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden for his radio play Die Andere und ich (The Other and I). Eich also won the Georg-Büchner-Preis in 1959 and the Schiller-Gedächtnispreis in 1968.

Notes

External links

• Valuable Nail: Selected Poems, trans. Stuart Friebert, David Walker, and David Young, ISBN 0-932440-08-8
• Oberlin College Press site for Günter Eich
• Axel Vieregg: 'The Spanner in the Works' (Review of G. Eich: Angina Days, Princeton 2010), The Berlin Review of Books, 30 March 2011