Abstract

The short poem “Tacchini” by German poet Durs Grünbein, born 1962 in Dresden, from his cycle Cyrano, oder: Die Rückkehr vom Mond (2014), takes on an almost forgotten lyrical topos: Being a classic symbol in 18th and 19th century poems, the moon apparently became less present in recent poetry. The reason for this proper ‘demystification’ may have been the first actual landing in 1969, making the moon a ‘mere’ place within reach. But the ‘conquest’ of space also had a surprising side effect, namely, the ‘rediscovery’ of the Earth, when the view on the ‘home planet’ led for the first time to a deliberate reflection on the relation between humans and nature. Grünbein refers to this shift of meaning when his cycle seems to deconstruct the history of moon poems by introducing the new perspective from the moon to the Earth. Thereby, “Tacchini” adopts the ‘view from above’ and thus reverses the classical observing position when the lyrical narrator describes traces of human civilization and environmental pollution visible from outer space. Set in dialogue with philosophical approaches by Richard Buckminster-Fuller and Günther Anders as well as the Anthropocene theory, Grünbein’s poem will be the starting point for a discussion of the concept of the ‘home planet’ and the boundaries of the ‘natural home’.