La "Karnevalspredigt" del 1892. Un carme inedito di Richard Dehmel

Abstract

This article aims to reconstruct a provocative performance staged by German poet Richard Dehmel (1863-1920) during the Berlin Carnival of 1892, when he appeared masked as Saint Anthony keeping a living pig on a leash. On this occasion Dehmel wrote and recited in public a blasphemous poem that he later never published. The original manuscript, preserved by the Dehmel Archive in Hamburg, is now presented here for the fi rst time. The article not only describes the historical and biographical context in which this bizarre literary operation was orchestrated, but also identifi es the direct literary sources of the poem.

Keywords

• blasphemy, Busch, Dehmel, poem, Saint Anthony