Klage aber nicht Anklage : biblische motive im Gedichtzyklus "Wohnungen des Todes" von Nelly Sachs

Author

Irmtraud Regina Cowell

Date of Award

5-1997

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

German

Major Professor

Peter Hoyng

Committee Members

Carolyn R. Hodges, Nancy A. Lauckner

Abstract

This thesis portrays the poet and Nobel prize winner Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), a person who struggled with her different identities in exile, and traces the biblical images and symbols in the poem cycle "Wohnungen des Todes" (1947). This thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter discusses the impact of the Holocaust on Sachs's personality and on her role as a writer. With her immigration to Sweden, the turning point in her life, Sachs faced not only a change of location but also a recapture of religious and Jewish traditions. The second chapter analyzes all four parts of the poem cycle. The cycle is elegiac throughout and lends a voice to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. By focusing on the use of biblical elements, the thesis makes it clear that the poems express grief for the victims but do not accuse the perpetrators. The final chapter considers the question of Sachs's identities as a German and as a Jew.

Recommended Citation

Cowell, Irmtraud Regina, "Klage aber nicht Anklage : biblische motive im Gedichtzyklus "Wohnungen des Todes" von Nelly Sachs. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1997.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/10487