Det planetariske blik

Abstract

With the breakthrough of the space industry after World War II, it became possible for the first time to view the Earth from space, resulting in two of the most spectacular images in history, “Earthrise” (1968) and “The Blue Marble” (1972). Building on these images and the new sensitivity to the Earth that emerged as a result of space technologies and satellite-based observations of the planet during the Cold War, the article argues that German writer Günter Kunert (1929-2019) was one of the few who understood from the very beginning the importance and significance of this “Copernican revolution of the gaze”, and that in his poetry from the early 1960s onwards, he continuously explored man’s place in the cosmos in the age of space travel.