The lyric poetry of German Expressionism opens a new era in the German literary language. The core topics of the Expressionist epoch from 1910 to 1920 include the fields of the modern city, the premonition and experience of a First World War, the world of industrial labour - but also encompass the search for new directions in politics and religion and for emotional sanctuary through poetry and in it. The often apocalyptic violence of the Expressionist lyric is a touchstone for the literary experience of crisis in modernism. Short compact introductions lead into the thematic fields. Texts by...