Adalbert Stifter
Encyclopedia
Adalbert Stifter was an Austria
n writer
, poet
, painter
, and pedagogue
. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing, and has long been popular in the German
-speaking world, while almost entirely unknown to English
readers.
(now Horní Planá
in the Czech Republic
), he was the eldest son of Johann Stifter, a wealthy linen
weaver, and his wife, Magdalena. Johann died in 1817 after being crushed by an overturned wagon. Stifter was educated at the Benedictine Gymnasium at Kremsmünster
, and went to the University of Vienna
in 1826 to study law
. In 1828 he fell in love with Fanny Greipl, but after a relationship lasting five years, her parents forbade further correspondence, a loss from which he never recovered. In 1835 he became engaged to Amalia Mohaupt, and they married in 1837, but the marriage was not a happy one. Stifter and his wife, unable to conceive, tried adopting three of Amalia's nieces at different times. One of the children ran away, and another, Juliana, disappeared and was found drowned in the Danube
four weeks later.
Instead of becoming a state official, he became a tutor
to the aristocrats of Vienna
, and was highly regarded as such. His students included Princess Maria Anna von Schwarzenberg and Richard Metternich
, son of Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. He also made some money from selling paintings, and published his first story, "Der Condor", in 1840. An immediate success, it inaugurated a steady writing career.
Stifter visited Linz
in 1848, and moved there permanently a year later, where he became editor
of the Linzer Zeitung and the Wiener Bote. In 1850 he was appointed supervisor of elementary schools for Upper Austria
.
His physical and mental health began to decline in 1863, and he became seriously ill from cirrhosis of the liver
in 1867. In deep depression, he slashed his neck with a razor on the night of 25 January 1868 and died two days later.
noted that "behind the quiet, inward exactitude of his descriptions of Nature in particular there is at work a predilection for the excessive, the elemental and the catastrophic, the pathological." Although considered by some to be one-dimensional compared to his more famous and realistic contemporaries, his visions of ideal worlds reflect his informal allegiance to the Biedermeier
movement in literature. As Carl Schorske puts it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of Bildung
, compounded of Benedictine
world piety, German humanism
, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel Der Nachsommer".
The majority of his works are long stories or short novels, many of which were published in multiple versions, sometimes radically changed. His major works are the long novels Der Nachsommer
and Witiko.
Stifter's Der Nachsommer (1857) and Gottfried Keller
's Der Grüne Heinrich
(Green Henry) were named the two great German novels of the 19th century by Friedrich Nietzsche
. Der Nachsommer is considered one of the finest examples of the Bildungsroman
, but received a mixed reception from critics at the time. Friedrich Hebbel
offered the crown of Poland to whoever could finish it, and called Stifter a writer only interested in "beetles and buttercups."
Witiko is a historical novel
set in the 12th century, a strange work panned by many critics, but praised by Hermann Hesse
and Thomas Mann. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
found great comfort from his reading of Witiko while in Tagel Prison under Nazi arrest.
recalls his meeting with the daughter of the keeper of the Swiss inn he was staying at whose favorite book was Stifter's Studien. This incident occurred prior to 1852.
He was named as an influence by W. G. Sebald
, and both W. H. Auden
and Marianne Moore
admired his work, the latter co-translating Bergkristall as Rock Crystal with Elizabeth Mayer
in 1945. Auden included Stifter in his poem "Academic Graffiti
" as one of the celebrities, literary and otherwise, captured in a clerihew
:
Adalbert Stifter / Was no weight-lifter: / He would hire old lags / To carry his bags.
Thomas Mann
was also an admirer of Stifter, calling him "one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most strangely gripping narrators in world literature."
Rilke and Hugo von Hofmannsthal were deeply indebted to his art.
, inspired by works of Adalbert Stifter, composed and directed a musical installation called Stifters Dinge (Stifter's Things), which premiered in 2007 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, in Lausanne
, Switzerland.
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Works online (plain text and HTML)
Wikipedia media
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, and pedagogue
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing, and has long been popular in the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
-speaking world, while almost entirely unknown to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
readers.
Life
Born in Oberplan in BohemiaBohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
(now Horní Planá
Horní Planá
Horní Planá is a town in Český Krumlov District, South Bohemia, Czech Republic. It has a population of 2,287 . It is the birthplace of Austrian poet Adalbert Stifter.- External links : * NAZI occupation of Czechoslovakia...
in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
), he was the eldest son of Johann Stifter, a wealthy linen
Linen
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....
weaver, and his wife, Magdalena. Johann died in 1817 after being crushed by an overturned wagon. Stifter was educated at the Benedictine Gymnasium at Kremsmünster
Kremsmünster Abbey
Kremsmünster Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Kremsmünster in Upper Austria.-History:The monastery was founded in 777 by Tassilo III, Duke of Bavaria...
, and went to the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
in 1826 to study law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
. In 1828 he fell in love with Fanny Greipl, but after a relationship lasting five years, her parents forbade further correspondence, a loss from which he never recovered. In 1835 he became engaged to Amalia Mohaupt, and they married in 1837, but the marriage was not a happy one. Stifter and his wife, unable to conceive, tried adopting three of Amalia's nieces at different times. One of the children ran away, and another, Juliana, disappeared and was found drowned in the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
four weeks later.
Instead of becoming a state official, he became a tutor
Tutor
A tutor is a person employed in the education of others, either individually or in groups. To tutor is to perform the functions of a tutor.-Teaching assistance:...
to the aristocrats of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and was highly regarded as such. His students included Princess Maria Anna von Schwarzenberg and Richard Metternich
Richard Klemens, Prince von Metternich
Prince Richard Klemens von Metternich , usually called Richard Metternich, was an Austrian diplomat, the son of the illustrious diplomat Prince Klemens von Metternich.-Biography:Richard Metternich was born in Vienna on 7 January 1829, the son of famous diplomat Prince Klemens von...
, son of Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. He also made some money from selling paintings, and published his first story, "Der Condor", in 1840. An immediate success, it inaugurated a steady writing career.
Stifter visited Linz
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
in 1848, and moved there permanently a year later, where he became editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
of the Linzer Zeitung and the Wiener Bote. In 1850 he was appointed supervisor of elementary schools for Upper Austria
Upper Austria
Upper Austria is one of the nine states or Bundesländer of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders on Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as on the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg...
.
His physical and mental health began to decline in 1863, and he became seriously ill from cirrhosis of the liver
Cirrhosis
Cirrhosis is a consequence of chronic liver disease characterized by replacement of liver tissue by fibrosis, scar tissue and regenerative nodules , leading to loss of liver function...
in 1867. In deep depression, he slashed his neck with a razor on the night of 25 January 1868 and died two days later.
Work
Stifter's work is characterized by the pursuit of beauty; his characters strive to be moral, and move in gorgeous landscapes luxuriously described. Evil, cruelty, and suffering rarely appear on the surface of his writing, but Thomas MannThomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
noted that "behind the quiet, inward exactitude of his descriptions of Nature in particular there is at work a predilection for the excessive, the elemental and the catastrophic, the pathological." Although considered by some to be one-dimensional compared to his more famous and realistic contemporaries, his visions of ideal worlds reflect his informal allegiance to the Biedermeier
Biedermeier
In Central Europe, the Biedermeier era refers to the middle-class sensibilities of the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions...
movement in literature. As Carl Schorske puts it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of Bildung
Bildung
The term refers to the German tradition of self-cultivation, , wherein philosophy and education are linked in manner that refers to a process of both personal and cultural maturation...
, compounded of Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
world piety, German humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel Der Nachsommer".
The majority of his works are long stories or short novels, many of which were published in multiple versions, sometimes radically changed. His major works are the long novels Der Nachsommer
Der Nachsommer
Der Nachsommer is a novel in three volumes by Adalbert Stifter. A 19th century Bildungsroman that describes the journey of an idealistic, sheltered young man from childhood to maturity, it combines aspects of Biedermeier thought with elements of German humanism to create what is generally...
and Witiko.
Stifter's Der Nachsommer (1857) and Gottfried Keller
Gottfried Keller
Gottfried Keller , a Swiss writer of German-language literature, was best known for his novel Green Henry .- Life and work :...
's Der Grüne Heinrich
Green Henry
Green Henry is a partially autobiographical novel by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller, first published in 1855, and extensively revised in 1880. The work stands with Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and Adalbert Stifter's Der Nachsommer as one of the three most important examples of a...
(Green Henry) were named the two great German novels of the 19th century by Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. Der Nachsommer is considered one of the finest examples of the Bildungsroman
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood , and in which character change is thus extremely important...
, but received a mixed reception from critics at the time. Friedrich Hebbel
Christian Friedrich Hebbel
Christian Friedrich Hebbel , was a German poet and dramatist.-Biography:Hebbel was born at Wesselburen in Ditmarschen, Holstein, the son of a bricklayer. He was educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums...
offered the crown of Poland to whoever could finish it, and called Stifter a writer only interested in "beetles and buttercups."
Witiko is a historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
set in the 12th century, a strange work panned by many critics, but praised by Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
and Thomas Mann. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr to assassinate Adolf Hitler...
found great comfort from his reading of Witiko while in Tagel Prison under Nazi arrest.
Influence
In the German edition of his Reminiscences, Carl SchurzCarl Schurz
Carl Christian Schurz was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army General in the American Civil War. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate.His wife,...
recalls his meeting with the daughter of the keeper of the Swiss inn he was staying at whose favorite book was Stifter's Studien. This incident occurred prior to 1852.
He was named as an influence by W. G. Sebald
W. G. Sebald
W. G. Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, and both W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
and Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
admired his work, the latter co-translating Bergkristall as Rock Crystal with Elizabeth Mayer
Elizabeth Mayer
Elizabeth Mayer was a German-born American translator and editor, closely associated with W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, and other writers and musicians. In the 1940s her homes in Long Island and New York served as an artistic salon for many émigré writers.Elizabeth Mayer was born in...
in 1945. Auden included Stifter in his poem "Academic Graffiti
Academic Graffiti
Academic Graffiti is a book of clerihews by W. H. Auden and illustrations by Filippo Sanjust. It was published in 1971.Auden began writing in 1950 the short comic poems on literary and historical figures that he would later collect in Academic Graffiti...
" as one of the celebrities, literary and otherwise, captured in a clerihew
Clerihew
A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. One of his best known is this :* It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it pokes fun at mostly famous people...
:
Adalbert Stifter / Was no weight-lifter: / He would hire old lags / To carry his bags.
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
was also an admirer of Stifter, calling him "one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most strangely gripping narrators in world literature."
Rilke and Hugo von Hofmannsthal were deeply indebted to his art.
Recent production
In 2007 German theater director Heiner GoebbelsHeiner Goebbels
Heiner Goebbels is a German composer, music director and professor at Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland....
, inspired by works of Adalbert Stifter, composed and directed a musical installation called Stifters Dinge (Stifter's Things), which premiered in 2007 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, in Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Switzerland.
Works
- Julius (1830)
- Der Condor (3 vols. 1839)
- Feldblumen ("Field Flowers") (1841)
- Das alte Siegel (1844)
- Die Narrenburg (1844)
- Studien (6 vols. 1844-1845)
- Das Haidedorf ("The Village on the Heath") (1840)
- Der Hochwald (1841)
- Abdias (1842)
- BrigittaBrigittaBrigitta is a novella by the Austrian author Adalbert Stifter. The novella opens with a discussion on inner beauty, which remains a strong theme throughout the novella.-Plot summary:...
(1844) - Der Hagestolz (1845)
- Der Waldsteig (1845)
- Der beschriebene Tännling (1846)
- Der Waldgänger ("The Wanderer in the Forest") (1847)
- Der arme Wohltäter (1848)
- Prokopus (1848)
- Die Schwestern ("The Sisters") (1850)
- Bunte Steine ("Colorful Stones") (2 vols., 1853)
- Granit ("Granite")
- Kalkstein ("Limestone")
- Turmalin ("Tourmaline")
- Bergkristall ("Rock Crystal")
- Katzensilber ("Muscovite")
- Bergmilch ("Moonmilk")
- Der NachsommerDer NachsommerDer Nachsommer is a novel in three volumes by Adalbert Stifter. A 19th century Bildungsroman that describes the journey of an idealistic, sheltered young man from childhood to maturity, it combines aspects of Biedermeier thought with elements of German humanism to create what is generally...
("Indian Summer") (1857) - Die Mappe meines Urgrossvaters (1864)
- Nachkommenschaften (1865)
- Witiko (3 vols., 1865–1867)
- Der Kuß von Sentze (1866)
- Erzählungen ("Tales") (1869)
Works in translation
- Castle Crazy ; and, Maroshely, tr. unknown 1851.
- Rock CrystalRock Crystal (novel)Rock Crystal is a novella by Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter. It influenced Thomas Mann and others with its "suspenseful, simple, myth-like story and majestic depictions of nature." Mann said Stifter is "one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most...
, tr. Lee M. Hollander 1914. - Rock Crystal, tr. Elizabeth MayerElizabeth MayerElizabeth Mayer was a German-born American translator and editor, closely associated with W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, and other writers and musicians. In the 1940s her homes in Long Island and New York served as an artistic salon for many émigré writers.Elizabeth Mayer was born in...
and Marianne MooreMarianne MooreMarianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
1945. Re-issued by Pushkin Press 2001 and by the New York Review of Books 2008. - The Recluse, Jonathan CapeJonathan CapeJonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
, Cape Editions, tr. unknown, ca. 1970. - Indian SummerDer NachsommerDer Nachsommer is a novel in three volumes by Adalbert Stifter. A 19th century Bildungsroman that describes the journey of an idealistic, sheltered young man from childhood to maturity, it combines aspects of Biedermeier thought with elements of German humanism to create what is generally...
, Peter Lang, tr. unknown 1985. - Brigitta and Other TalesBrigittaBrigitta is a novella by the Austrian author Adalbert Stifter. The novella opens with a discussion on inner beauty, which remains a strong theme throughout the novella.-Plot summary:...
, Penguin Press, tr. Helen Watanabe-O'KellyHelen Watanabe-O'KellyHelen Watanabe-O'Kelly is the Fellow and Tutor in German at Exeter College, Oxford, and Professor of German Literature at Oxford University. She specialises in the early modern period, and is a distinguished scholar in this field, and in the field of German literature as a whole...
1995. - Indian Summer, tr. Wendell Frye 2006.
- The Bachelors, Pushkin Press, tr. unknown 2009.
External links
Works online (plain text and HTML)
- Works by or about Adalbert Stifter at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
and Google Books (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
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