SOURCE: “Autobiography and Epic in Der Untergang der Titanic,” in Germanic Notes, Vol. 22, Nos. 1-2, 1991, pp. 14-16.

In the following essay, Melin considers the significance of allusions in Der Untergang der Titanic (The Sinking of the Titanic) to Enzensberger's own life and works.

Commenting on the problematical definition of the authorial personality in The Sinking of the Titanic (Hans Magnus Enzensberger's own English translation of his epic poem Der Untergang der Titanic), an American reviewer observed, “The ‘I’ has no tenure in these poems … ” The remark indicates not a response to an absence of writing in the first person, but a reaction to the nature of this text as a work of public poetry that reveals only the elusive identity for its author. Personal pronouns, in fact, abound in both the German and English versions of Der Untergang der Titanic as the ich or I of the work...