Flucht und Verwandlung [Flight and Metamorphosis] by Nelly Sachs, published in 1959 by the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, is the final complete volume of poems published before, and therefore included in, the first Sachs anthology Fahrt ins Staublose: Die Gedichte der Nelly Sachs [Journey into Dustlessness, Suhrkamp 1961]. Unlike Sachs’ previous volumes In den Wohnungen des Todes (1947), Sternverdunkelung (1949), and Und niemand weiss weiter (1957), all collections of cycles revolving around a central dialectical concept (life/death; remembering/forgetting; living on/downfall), Flucht und Verwandlung is itself one long cycle on the dialectic “Flucht und Verwandlung”, that is of flight and metamorphosis. Sachs herself referred to the cycle as “35 hymnische Gesänge” [“35 hymn-like songs”], although she never articulates whether she means “hymn-like” in form, or in content, or both.
How and when these poems were composed is not...
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Citation: Hoyer, Jennifer. "Flucht und Verwandlung". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 June 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=20747, accessed 09 June 2026.]
