The disinherited mind: Essays in modern German literature and thought

by Erich Heller

The Disinherited Mind has been in continuous demand since 1st publication in '52, recognized as a work whose significance extends far beyond the subject of German letters. Noted critic & poet Edwin Muir has written: "The condition it describes is our condition, & I can think of no other modem book in which it is described so clearly." The unifying theme is the sense of values embodied in the works of key German poets, writers & thinkers from Goethe to Kafka, particularly the consciousness of life's deprecation. While earlier poets & philosophers were preoccupied with the marvelous, Prof. Heller writes, their modem successors try desperately to ward off "the predominance of the prosaic." He deals with this problem most directly in the central essay, "Rilke & Nietzsche." Other essays discuss Goethe's Faust, his opposition to Newtonian science, Burckhardt's philosophy of history, Kafka's The Castle, Spengler's historical imagination & Karl Kraus's satire.
Acknowledgments
Preface to the Original Edition
Preface to the American Edition
Goethe & the idea of scientific truth
Goethe & the avoidance of tragedy
Burckhardt & Nietzsche
Nietzsche & Goethe
Rilke & Nietzsche with a discourse on thought, belief & poetry
Oswald Spengler & the predicament of the historical imagination
The world of Franz Kafka
Karl Kraus: The last days of mankind
The hazard of modern poetry
References

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, Literary Criticism, History, Criticism, Germany, Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

Reviews

[Raymond Deane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my father's favourite books, and I absorbed it myself as an adolescent (i.e. more than 40 years ago!). It introduced me to the work of Kafka, Hölderlin, Rilke and others at a time when this was a completely brave new world for me. Recently I picked up a copy of it and re-read it - I still found it profoundly stimulating, although by now I have my own perspective on the authors and issues concerned. Heller was a cultural conservative, for whom all art since Goethe constitutes a "voyage into the artist's interior" and hence a devaluation of the world. I don't necessarily accept this view, but I'm grateful to have it so beautifully expressed by an author who felt so passionately about his convictions.

[Duncan Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a critical book in helping me grasp the pivotal issues of the German-speaking intellectual world in the mid- and late-19th-century.

I found Heller's treatments of Goethe, Burckhardt, and Nietzsche to be unsurpassed in their depth, comprehensiveness and nuance.

Very highly recommended, indeed.

[Nasar · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars!

In by-gone days it was the business of the imagination to create within the world of the senses the image and symbol capable of expressing the wealth of inner experience. It was in art that man, dissatisfied with the meagre scope of his ‘real’ life, found reality more adequate to what he felt to be the truth of his existence. Today it is different: our task — and difficulty — is rather to find within ourselves something big enough to be charged with the responsibility for the monstrous dimensions of our external reality. In a better age the disaster of the world which we have caused, and the still greater destruction which we face, would have been the doing of mythological creatures, enemies of mankind, hostile gods who tear open the mountains and burn the habitations of man in the volcanic fire; of giants, cyclops and sinister magicians who have robbed Olympus of its secrets and with them threaten to extinguish life. In our uncanny and enlightened epoch all this is merely the result of a conspiracy of sobriety, scientific planning, mediocrity and human insignificance.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply serious look at some modern German thinkers. I especially enjoyed the Kafka section.

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book that I must process further. Review to follow.