Wolfgang Koeppens Italienessays

Wolfgang Koeppen travelled extensively throughout his life and kept a diary of his journeys.Among these, the descriptions of Italy represent a special complex, which differs from his other travel texts in that they do not describe journeys into the unknown, but to cities that have been depicted so often in countless travelogues, pictures and films that it is no longer possible to enter them without hesitation: Rome and Venice.Koeppen calls his journeys sensitive journeys, which provokes the question of how such sensitive journeys could still be possible in the age of mass tourism and omnipresent multimedia clich images.My essay examines how Koeppen nevertheless appropriates Rome and Venice in a very unique way, despite the obstacles and the ever-present myths.