Identity, irony and skepticism in Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s poem “Gutes Zureden”

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the poem “Gutes Zureden” from the collection Kiosk, published in 1995 by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. In the initial part, the article presents a theoretical discussion on the concept of identity and its confluence with concerns arising from the poetic discussion of the second half of the 20th century, adding Enzensberger’s contributions about the industry of consciousness. In the three vectors of this discussion, the focus is directed to meaning management and language uses. The second part of the article presents an analysis of the poem, in order to verify how the concept of identity is problematized in the text.