The Disinherited Mind · Essays in Modern German Literature and Thought

Heller examines the sense of values embodied in the works of key German writers and thinkers from Goethe to Kafka, particularly the consciousness of life's depreciation.

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