The death of the Titanic. Encensberger H. M.

Hans Magnus Encentsberger The most significant German poet of the second half of the 20th century, the successor of the traditions of civilian lyrics from Heine to Brecht; For a long time he combined political radicalism with radicalism aesthetic. To this day, Encensberger remains one of the most influential European intellectuals.

Ensensberger called his epic catastrophole, sarcastically rethinking Dante's definition: “Comedy is a poetic work of the middle style with a frightening beginning and a prosperous end.” This is a comedy in a generally accepted sense, but the range of author’s reflection is wide from the “ship of fools” to the “bright future”, from “human comedy” to the gags of silent cinema, in its background the attenuation of the revolutionary hopes of the 1960s. The first version of the “death of the Titanic” was created in 1969 in Havana, during the work of Entensberger in support of the Cuban Revolution, but the only copy was lost on the way to Europe. Thus, the history of the creation echoes the main theme of the poem.

The unsinkable liner, which contained all the benefits of Western civilization, drowned two years before the beginning of the First World War. He appears to be a grand metaphor for the Society of Blagific Work, the paths of which are inaccessible, and disasters are unpredictable. According to the poet, we do not know the laws of history, and the results of public evolution and political activity cannot be predicted, and this is the reason for the failure of all positive utopias.

The transformation of the dead “Titanic” into a mythologist, into a powerful engine of the cultural industry was also reflected in a poem, first translated into Russian.