Der Topos vom Goldenen Zeitalter bei Schriftstellern der DDR

Abstract

Topoi – in the conception of Ernst Robert Curtius – are generally usable fixed formulas of thinking and expression. The topos of the Golden Age has been known in the ancient literature since Hesiod and in the modern literature until the 18th century. It is noticed also in the literature of the GDR in conformity with the pretension to erect a new society. In philosophical and poetical works (Ernst Bloch respectively Johannes R. Becher, Bertolt Brecht and Peter Hacks) we find an optimistic interpretation as well as in the poetry of Virgil. On the other hand, Günter Kunert, Franz Fühmann, Waldtraut Lewin and Heiner Müller preferred a pessimistic interpretation of that topos or pointed out its abuse. We can recognize a development from identification to distance in connection with the disappointment about the ‘real socialism‘. At the same time it is evident, that the conception of topos is not a static, but a different phenomenon according to the historical context.