Großstadtlyrik in Nachkriegszeiten
- Heinrich Böll was known in German postwar literature primarily as a committed intellectual and author of novels and short stories. Less visible were his poems, which are neither among the great lyrical texts of postwar literature nor exclusively occasional poetry – although occasional poems make up an important part of Böll’s body of work. The writer of poems also expresses concerns typical of Böll as an author in general, such as themes of everyday life, social problems, or issues of religion. This is particularly evident in the poems written between 1968 and 1984, in which he speaks of his hometown of Cologne. Changes of the postwar decades are thereby problematized within the horizon of Cologne’s history. Böll thus delivers a noteworthy attempt to update the tradition of metropolitan poetry beyond National Socialism and the postwar period.
