'Herr Doktor, ich höre, Sie besteigen auch den Pegasus?' Gottfried Benns frühe Essays

Considered the experimental genre par excellence, in the first part of the twentieth century the essay played a central role in the construction of the modern self. Its marginal and ‘slanting’ relationship with ‘pure’ literature has made it a particularly suitable field of cultural-historical research. In the literary context designated as ‘Deutsche Moderne’, Gottfried Benn’s position deserves closer attention. In his criticism of the positivist conception of science and on the biological study of the human brain, Benn seems to show the gradual achievement of a style aimed at emphasising the irrational aspects of the human soul. Through a fusion of fiction and historical-scientific writing, Benn’s essay form led to a vision of the self as the compositional centre of his texts.