Présence et vérité du diorama dans l’œuvre de Durs Grünbein

The contribution starts from Kindheit im Diorama, contained in the collection Galilei vermißt Dantes Hölle (1996), to find the figures of poetry dictated by the ecstasy of the child before dioramas with animals, towards which Grünbein shows a marked inclination that still accompanies the adult author today. In the awareness of the precariousness of life and the extinction of many animal species at the hands of man, the zoological diorama allows reflections that move between nostalgia, mourning work (Trauerarbeit) and the enchantment of the childlike cosmos, where everything is animated. The contrast with the neo-constructivist and machinic systems of societies driven by cyber-capitalism works as a backdrop for solicitations that present the reader with the aporias of the anthropological mutation in progress. What dominates is the Stimmung that the cleverly orchestrated words interweave with the visit to the dioramas. In the background is a Saxon childhood, spent with the author’s maternal and paternal grandparents: one head butcher at the Dresden slaughterhouse, the other a puzzle enthusiast. The grandson's attitudes towards them allow us to trace a journey back to the sources of a poetic inspiration, which arose precisely from the child's visits to the dioramas with animals