FRANK FINLAY

On the Rationality of Poetry: Heinrich Böll’s Aesthetic Thinking

RODOPI, 284pp.

ISBN: 90-5183-989-8

This volume explores Heinrich Böll’s ‘aesthetic thinking’, as it is expressed in the author's disparate and voluminous writings on literature. Böll's work in this field is situated in the multi-faceted context of social, political, and cultural developments in post-war Germany, and is shown to be an important adjunct to the novels and stories which were honoured with the Nobel Prize.
An understanding of Heinrich Böll’s ‘aesthetic thinking’ can illuminate the writer's fiction in an intriguing way. In particular, Böll’s defence of the ‘rationality of poetry’ raises issues which reverberate in continuing debates on the social validity of literature.

From the reviews:

"Of all the works on Böll [since 1985] ... Finlay's is certainly the most distinctive and one of the most important. [...] Finlay's prodigious effort to bring these dispersed references together [...] is an enormous contribution to the Böll scholarship. [He] ... argues persuasively that all these literary concerns of Böll, when taken together, make him something no one thought he was - a Theoretiker as well as a Schriftsteller [...] Finlay's bahnbrechendes book is a valuable, practical reference for all Böll scholars."
The German Quarterly

"[Finlay] has uncovered a great deal of little-known material in the Böll archives in Cologne, so that even when he is dealing with the more familiar aspects of Böll's work and outlook he is able to do so in a refreshing way."
The Modern Language Review