Includes bibliographical references and index.. - Urworte Goethisch : demonic primal words -- Demons of morphology -- Biographical demons (Goethe's Poetry and truth) -- The unhappy endings of morphology : Oswald Spengler's demonic history -- Demonic ambivalences : Walter Benjamin's counter-morphology -- Georg Lukacs and the demonic novel -- Demonic inheritances : Heimito von Doderer's The demons -- Conclusion. transformations of the demonic -- Appendix : German text and English translation of Goethe's "Urworte orphisch" (with commentary)