Il lirico e l'oscuro. La poesia di Gottfried Benn e Paul Celan sulla scena letterario-editoriale italiana

The aim of this paper is to point out the great influence of the academic actors of the Italian cultural setting, importing from Germany the interpretations of Hugo Friedrich about “Lyrik” and modernism on the one hand, and the debate about nihilism and post-Nietzscheanism on the other, and then playing a crucial role in the editorial choices and decisions about poetry in translation from the German. The distinction between Benn as a “Lyriker” and Celan as an “obscure poet” determines a polarization in the editorial reception of both authors, a situation that is only to come to an end in the late 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century.