Rainer Nägele (August 2, 1943 – May 12, 2022) was an American literary scholar whose research primarily focused on modern German and comparative literature.
Nägele was the Alfred C. & Martha F. Mohr Professor Emeritus of German Language and Literature at Yale University.
[5] Nägele dealt with literary theory, aesthetics, philosophy, and psychoanalysis and focused his research on German and comparative literature from the 18th to 20th centuries.
Like several other works, the essays do not create a complete theory but repeatedly analyze material anew.
[7] Nägele's research covered many figures: Pindar, Sophocles, Hölderlin, Goethe, Keller, Nietzsche, Rilke, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Brecht, Trakl, Kafka, Celan, Artaud, Böll, Handke, Müller, Martin Walser, Freud, Lacan, and Benjamin.