Gótico alemán: Ewers y las dualidades peligrosas

Abstract

This essay presents the case of the German writer Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943) who, before World War I, was the most translated author of his country. Through his prose one can find many ingredients (the macabre, the gothic, the fantastic, the cruel) that made him a great representative of the dark German imagination, from Romanticism to XX century. Unfortunately, his late participation in the Nazi movement affected his reputation (as in the case of Jünger, in Germany, or Céline, in France), but it’s time to review his literary work, beyond his political thought, that changed from the cosmopolitism in the first decades of XX century (when he
reached great success) to nationalism (in his last years). His participation in the Expressionist German Cinema with The Student of Prague (1914) and some adaptions of his stories (Alraune or Mandragore, for example) were another important aspect of his career.