Heroischer Fatalismus

The article re-evaluates the notion of heroic agency by arguing that many instances of heroism in early 20th century German literature rely not on great deeds, but on images of fatalist persistence. After a discussion of the conceptual elements and traditions of heroic persistence, the essay surveys variants of its semanticization between Nietzsche’s amor fati and German exile narrations of the 1940s. The perusal shows that ›heroic attentism‹ in modernist literature is less dependent on the respective political affiliations of the authors, but rather on the concept’s ability to adapt to discursive trends and remain applicable to different historical experiences.