Colui che è solo: Gottfried Benn nell’epoca postgoethiana

The subject of this contribution is the analysis of the context in which Gottfried Benn wrote his poem Wer allein ist and of Benn's way of interacting with Goethe. The frame in which the genesis of the work is placed is the correspondence between Benn and Friedrich Wilhelm Oleze, published in its entirety only in 2016. Following Theo Meyer's idea of a Gegenbildlichkeit in the way Benn appropriates Goethe's work, I try to make a new contribution to the interpretation of a poem already frequented by critics. Therefore I focus on the dialogue that the poem maintains not only with Goethe's Selige Sehnsucht, but also with his Venezianische Epigramme and Im ernsten Beinhaus war’s.