Hanns Zischler | © Heike Bogenberger
Borchardt and the Germans were never really happy together. Seldom read for the most part, the author has for years only ever caught the public eye for those aspects of his work that lend themselves to scandal: The imaginative way he stylized his own vita, his publication of Aufzeichnung Stefan George betreffend (Recording Concerning Stefan George) and of Weltpuff Berlin (Berlin, the World’s Brothel) all aroused brief surges of curiosity that ebbed away just as quickly.
Notwithstanding, there have always been readers who knew exactly who this Rudolf Borchardt was: one of the greatest lyricists of the 20th century. Theodor W. Adorno’s verdict? “He wrote the kind of lines you otherwise find only in music, lines that sound as though they have always been there.” Through readings and conversation, Hanns Zischler and Wolfgang Matz revive the memory of this, the most famous unknown entity in German literature.
Hanns Zischler, born in Nuremberg in 1947, is an actor, author and publisher. His voice is well known to the Lyrik Kabinett, where he has read texts by the likes of Adelbert von Chamisso and Leonid Aronson, as well as Borchardt’s “Jamben”.
Wolfgang Matz, born in Berlin in 1955, author and translator, published Rudolf Borchardt. Der verlorene Posten (Rudolf Borchardt. The lost cause) in 2023 at the Wallstein Verlag.
Tickets: 9 euros / 6 euros (discount rate). Lyrik Kabinett members receive free admission. For more information, please visit the Lyrik Kabinett website. The event will be held in German.
LMU and the Lyrik Kabinett have worked together very intensively for over 30 years. The more than 70,000 works subsumed under the Lyrik Kabinett Foundation are available via OPAC to everyone related to LMU. Numerous events provide a fascinating insight into the current poetic landscape.