SOURCE: Spahr, Blake Lee. “Gryphius and the Crisis of Identity.” German Life and Letters 22, no. 4 (July 1969): 358-64.

In the following essay, Spahr considers how Gryphius's works show evidence of the poet's deep concern over the interaction between man's outer self (his physical body, his connection to earthly matters) and his inner being (his soul, his link with eternity and the afterlife).

A prominent trait of the Baroque era is to represent the individual self, whether in literature or in real life, within the framework of the relationship—societal, political or religious—to the world around. The consequence of this tendency is a dissolution or dissipation of the individual identity. A person, like a chameleon, is forced to assume the colours of his surroundings, is compelled to ‘fit in’ with the scene on which he appears. That is, he must assume a rôle congruent to his surroundings. This...