I. Introduction

Gottfried Benn is a renowned 20th-century German poet and a leading figure of Expressionism, whose poetic ideas have had a profound influence on later generations. In Benn's poetry, the "self" (Ich) is a core concept that permeates his entire body of work. The self in poetry is referred to as the lyrical self, a defining feature of modern poetry. In Benn's works, "Ich" functions as a pronoun with abstract symbolic significance. Benn viewed poetry as a dialogue of the self, where the self serves as both the starting point and the ultimate goal of the lyrical text. This chapter explores Benn's reflections and explorations on the question of the self in his poetry, centered around the concept of the lyrical self.

II. The Historical Context of Benn's Concept of the Lyrical Self

In The Problem of Lyric Poetry, Benn regarded writing as a process of self-reflection, asserting that poetry is an inquiry into human nature and an evocative grasp of truth. The lyrical self is a complex and contentious concept in Western literary history, involving the distinction and connection between the lyrical self and the empirical self. In Benn's poetry, the lyrical self is both the speaking subject and the spoken object, yet it does not entirely coincide with the poet's empirical self; instead, it undertakes the interrogation of the self and the reflection on poetic creation. Benn's focus on the question of the self is closely tied to the historical context of his time. The awakening of modernity positioned humanity as the highest measure, making the self the center of all things. Twentieth-century modernist literature and art began exploring subjectivity, delving into the inner worlds and psychological states of individuals. Benn lived during Germany's modernization, a period when metaphysics was challenged by science, and humans were defined as beings without transcendence, with concepts like God or the soul dismissed as illusions. Benn rejected mechanistic or materialistic explanations of humanity, believing that modern individuals still sought existential meaning beyond the biological level. This experience of disenchantment and sense of loss influenced modern poets. The history of lyric poetry is a process of the lyrical subject's growing self-awareness; faced with alienation from the external world, the lyrical subject increasingly retreated into its inner world. However, since the latter half of the 19th century, modern poetry formally negated the existence of the self, revealing the conflicted psyche of modern poets confronting self-consciousness. German idealist philosophy regarded consciousness as the foundation of all understanding. With the turn toward self-consciousness, the subject became increasingly isolated from the external world, viewing the entire outer reality as an internal experience. Benn doubted that consciousness, as an expression of higher rationality, was the sole source of human action. For him, suffering from consciousness was another expression of suffering from rationalism, the consequence of which was the depersonalization or alienation of the world, where humans lost their essential quality—the soul.

III. The Multifaceted Meanings of the Lyrical Self

Benn believed that the monologic nature of modern poetry was intrinsic to its essence—poetry was not a dialogue but an expression of the self's existential state. The lyrical self engages in an internal dialogue within poetry, achieving an escape from the external self. The connection and distinction between the lyrical self and the inner self lie in its simultaneous accommodation of utterance and reflection, dissolving the traditional subject-object relationship in discourse. In Benn's poetry, the lyrical self appears as a traditional observer, transforming scenes as objects into poetic imagery. Starting in 1913, the noun "self" frequently appeared in Benn's poems, marking a deepening inward turn of the lyrical self. Benn pursued ecstasy as a means to escape self-consciousness. Cocaine here serves as a symbol, representing an aesthetic method of fleeing the external self, initiating the lyrical self's monologue and the destruction of self-awareness.

The foundation of the lyrical self lies in its dialogue with the inner self, yet it also transcends the poet's empirical self, undertaking collective reflection. The keyword of Benn's later poetics, "the absolute," signifies purification—the removal of all impurities unrelated to art. Absolute poetry would transcend personal experience and all existing cultural traditions in a negative manner, existing solely as the beauty of formalized language. The absoluteness of the lyrical self first manifests in the separation of the work from the author's empirical personality, with the empirical self being the impurity to be removed. Benn incorporated the aesthetic views of Mallarmé and Nietzsche, using poetic form to critique subjectivity. Until 1920, the dissolution of self-consciousness remained the central issue in Benn's works. Afterward, his self-reflection entered a new phase, where he more explicitly centered his thoughts on reflections about modern humanity.

In Benn's pursuit of absolute poetry, personal experience and existing metaphysics were gradually sublated until only existence itself remained, and the lyrical self thereby moved from the empirical world toward ontology. Benn's later poetic thought appears as an echo of Mallarmé's ontological poetics. Both agreed that in the void left by the destruction of the empirical subject and reality, the formal beauty of poetry was the "highest content." Form, as an intuitive grasp of the world free from rational speculation, led Benn to declare that "God is form." A Nietzschean interpretation of this extreme proclamation would be: "Art is the last metaphysical activity in European nihilism." Within this nihilism, Benn demanded the destruction and emptying of everything: "Let all lost values be lost, let all the themes sung in the theological age be praised." In this void, art, as a "new morality and metaphysics in form," became a new possibility for redemption. Benn shaped a new self through word combinations, discovering in the process the transcendence of the lyrical self: as an aesthetic product, it ultimately detaches from the poet, even surpassing language itself. The artistry of the lyrical self lies in stripping away all impurities, existing solely as the beauty of language, justifying existence "forever as an aesthetic phenomenon." In the void of content, the form of the lyrical self becomes its content, and its material is the word.

IV. Conclusion

In Benn's poetry, the lyrical self symbolizes the identity of poetry and thought, embodying the unity of poetic creation and self-reflection. Its meaning deepened and expanded throughout his career, always revolving around the capitalized "I"—from internal dialogue to transcending the empirical subject, ultimately focusing on existence itself. The lyrical self assumes the roles of the personal self and the reflection on modern subjectivity, highlighting the interrogation of existential questions and the metaphysical-aesthetic justification. Its monologic and absolute qualities ultimately merge into artistry, becoming an aesthetic existence that transcends words, rich in suggestiveness and polysemy, within which the answer to the question of existence is also revealed.