Poetry
The Sinking of the Titanic
Der Untergang der Titanic
Hans Magnus Enzensberger · 1978
Synopsis
Thirty-three cantos follow the night of 14 to 15 April 1912: the collision with the iceberg, the crew's manoeuvres, the passengers of the three classes, lifeboats that will never suffice for everyone. Sixteen poems are interspersed between the cantos. The one who writes speaks of himself in them: of Havana, where he began the poem in 1969, of the manuscript lost on the way to Europe, of Berlin, where he rewrites it ten years later, and he asks himself how one represents a disaster.
Context
The poem appeared in 1978 with Suhrkamp with the subtitle “a comedy”. Enzensberger had begun it in Havana in 1969; the first version, sent from Cuba, never arrived, and he rewrote it in Berlin, where he finished it in 1977. It can be read as a farewell to the revolutionary hopes of the sixties as much as an ironic commentary on visions of the end of the world, and the number of cantos refers to that of the Divine Comedy. George Tabori brought it to the stage in Munich; the author himself gave the English version.
Who it is for
About a hundred pages of verse; the cantos are interspersed with poems on other subjects, and the author often speaks of himself in them.
Prizes and reception
Its author's most noted poem, translated into French as early as 1981, and adapted for both stage and opera.
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