In the first decades of the 20th century, numerous biographies of selected rulers and intellectual greats were written around the poet Stefan George. Prominent examples are Goethe (1916) and Caesar. History of his Fame (1924) by Friedrich Gundolf, Nietzsche. Attempt at a Mythology (1918) by Ernst Bertram and Emperor Friedrich II (1927) by Ernst H. Kantorowicz. The historical 'perpetrators' and 'poets' are staged as heroes and placed in a hero genealogy that leads to George. Based on five case studies, the present work discusses the narrative form of the circle biography for the first time and explains the hero concept of the George circle in its intertextual and intermedial structure. |