Reviews : Walter Hasenclever: Eine Biographie der deutschen Moderne. By Bert Kasties. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1994. Pp. 420, DM 156,00
Abstract
ReviewsWalter Hasenclever: Eine Biographie der deutschen Moderne. By Bert Kasties. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1994. Pp. 420, DM 156,00 SAGE Publications, Inc.1995DOI: 10.1177/004724419502500227 Richard Sheppard Bert Kasties's new biography of the dramatist Walter Hasenclever (1890-1940), the first to be written on the basis of total access to the writer's huge Nachlaj3, is expensive but worth every Pfennig. To date, much of the secondary literature on Hasenclever has been conditioned by Kurt Pinthus's s foreword to the 1963 edition of Hasenclever's works, and Dr Kasties sets out, with admirable thoroughness, to break the hold of Pinthus's account. The result is a clearly-written and balanced account of Hasenclever's life and works which makes use of letters that have only just been published, a large amount of MS material and several hundred newspaper articles. In undertaking this massive task, Kasties does justice to all stages and aspects of Hasenclever's confused and restless life and does not gloss over the less attractive sides of his personality: his egoism, sexual unreliability and elitest views on art and literature. Although Hasenclever is best known as an Expressionist playwright, Kasties gives careful consideration to his work as a student of mysticism, a highly successful comic