Arno Schmidt
Encyclopedia

Arno Schmidt was a 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....

 author and translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

.

Biography

Born in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, son of a police constable, Schmidt moved with his widowed mother to Lauban (in Lusatia
Lusatia
Lusatia is a historical region in Central Europe. It stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Elbe valley in the west, today located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Lower Silesian and Lubusz voivodeships of western Poland...

, then Lower Silesia
Lower Silesia
Lower Silesia ; is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Upper Silesia is to the southeast.Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of the medieval Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy from 1526...

, now Polish) and attended the secondary school in Görlitz
Görlitz
Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...

. He then worked as a clerk in a textile company in Greiffenberg
Greiffenberg
Greiffenberg may refer to:*Gryfów Śląski, Poland*Greiffenberg, Brandenburg, Germany...

. At the outset of World War II in 1939, Schmidt was drafted into the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

. He first served in Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 and after 1941 in fairly quiet Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. In 1945, Schmidt volunteered for active duty at the front in Northern Germany in order to be granted a brief home visit, as was the custom. He used that visit to organize a defection from Lusatia westwards for him and his wife, in order to evade capture by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

, which was famed for its abuse of prisoners of war (POW) and German civilians in the east, and gave himself up to British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 forces in the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 province of Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

.

After an interlude as an English POW and later as an interpreter at a police school, Schmidt started his future life as a freelance writer during the time of wandering that followed the war. Since Schmidt's pre-war home in Lauban was in the part of Germany placed under Polish administration after the war, Schmidt became part of the throng of refugees moved by the authorities from village to village in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

. This included stints in Cordingen (in the Bomlitz
Bomlitz
Bomlitz is a municipality in the Heidekreis district, in Lower Saxony, Germany.- Location :Bomlitz lies on the Lüneburg Heath in a heavily wooded area...

 county of Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

), Gau-Bickelheim
Gau-Bickelheim
Gau-Bickelheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.- Location :...

, and Kastel
Kastel
Kastel may refer to:*Kastel, a village in Sevlievo Municipality, Gabrovo Province, Bulgaria.*Kaštela, Croatia*Mainz-Kastel, district of Wiesbaden, formerly the city of Kastel until its incorporation into Wiesbaden, Germany on August 10, 1945...

 (both in the newly formed province of Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

). In Kastel
Kastel
Kastel may refer to:*Kastel, a village in Sevlievo Municipality, Gabrovo Province, Bulgaria.*Kaštela, Croatia*Mainz-Kastel, district of Wiesbaden, formerly the city of Kastel until its incorporation into Wiesbaden, Germany on August 10, 1945...

, he was accused in court of blasphemy
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...

 and moral subversion, which was then still prosecuted in the Catholic parts of West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

. As a result, Schmidt and his wife moved to the Protestant city of Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

 in Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

, where the suit against him was dismissed. In 1958, the Schmidts moved to the small village of Bargfeld
Bargfeld
Bargfeld is a hamlet of about 190 inhabitants near Celle in Lower Saxony, Germany, documented since 1056, now belonging to the village municipality Eldingen....

 (near Celle
Celle
Celle is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the River Aller, a tributary of the Weser and has a population of about 71,000...

) in Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...

, where they were to stay (cf. Martynkewicz 1992).

Schmidt was a strict individualist, almost a solipsist. Disaffected by his experience of the Third Reich, he had an extremely pessimistic world view. In Schwarze Spiegel, he describes his utopia as an empty world after an anthropogenic apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...

. Although he was a strict atheist, he maintained that the world was created by a monster called Leviathan
Leviathan
Leviathan , is a sea monster referred to in the Bible. In Demonology, Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell and its gatekeeper . The word has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature...

, whose predatory nature was passed on to humans. Still, he thought this monster could not be too powerful to be attacked, if it behooved humanity.

His writing style is characterized by a unique and witty style of adapting colloquial language, which won him quite a few fervent admirers. Moreover, he developed an orthography by which he thought to reveal the true meaning of words and their connections amongst each other. One of the most cited examples is the use of “Roh=Mann=Tick” instead of “Romantik” (revealing romanticism as the craze of unsubtle men). The atoms of words holding the nuclei of original meaning he called Etyme (etyms).

His theory of etyms is developed in his magnum opus
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

, Zettels Traum
Zettels Traum
Zettels Traum is a novel written in 1970 by German author Arno Schmidt. Schmidt began writing the novel in December 1963 while he and Hans Wollschläger began to translate the works of Edgar Allan Poe into German...

, in which an elderly writer comments on Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

's works in a stream of consciousness, while discussing a Poe translation with a couple of translators and flirting with their teenage daughter. Schmidt also accomplished a translation of Edgar Allan Poe's works himself (1966–73, together with Hans Wollschläger
Hans Wollschläger
thumb|right|150px| Signature, 1988Hans Wollschläger was a German writer, translator, historian, and editor of German literature.-Biography:...

).

In the 1960s, he authored a series of plays for German radio stations presenting forgotten or little known and - in his opinion - vastly underrated authors, as e.g. Johann Gottfried Schnabel
Johann Gottfried Schnabel
Johann Gottfried Schnabel was a German writer best known for his novel Insel Felsenburg. He published his works under the pen name Gisander....

, Karl Philipp Moritz
Karl Philipp Moritz
Karl Philipp Moritz was a German author, editor and essayist of the Sturm und Drang, late enlightenment, and classicist periods, influencing early German Romanticism as well...

, Leopold Schefer
Leopold Schefer
Leopold Schefer , German poet, novelist, and composer, was born in a small town in Upper Lusatia , only child of a poor country doctor.-Biography:...

, Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow, et al. These "plays" are basically talks about literature with two or three participants plus voices for quotations (Schmidt lent his voice for his translations of Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...

quoted in Der Triton mit dem Sonnenschirm [1961]). 11 of these so called "Radio-Essays" were republished on 12 audio CDs in the year 2003.

As none of his works sold more than a few thousand copies, he lived in extreme poverty. During the last few years of his life, Arno Schmidt was financially supported by the philologist and writer Jan Philipp Reemtsma, the heir of the German cigarette manufacturer Philipp F. Reemtsma.

After a stroke, Arno Schmidt died in a hospital at Celle
Celle
Celle is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the River Aller, a tributary of the Weser and has a population of about 71,000...

. The Arno Schmidt Foundation (Arno Schmidt Stiftung) in Bargfeld, dotated by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, is publishing his complete works.

The US entrepreneur and technology writer Dave Winer
Dave Winer
Dave Winer is an American software developer, entrepreneur and writer in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting...

 is a grandnephew of Arno Schmidt.

Dalkey Archive Press will be reissuing their four-volume series of Schmidt's work translated by John E. Woods in April 2011. The series includes Collected Novellas, Collected Stories, Nobodaddy's Children, and Two Novels. The reissues are scheduled to coincide with "Rediscovering Arno Schmidt events in the US, UK, and continental Europe."

German

  • Leviathan - stories, 1949
  • Brand's Haide - novel, 1951
  • Schwarze Spiegel - novel, 1951
  • Aus dem Leben eines Fauns - novel, 1953
  • Die Umsiedler - prose studies, 1953
  • Das steinerne Herz - novel, 1954
  • Die Gelehrtenrepublik - novel, 1957
  • Dya na sore - dialogues, 1958
  • Fouqué und einige seiner Zeitgenossen - biography, 1958
  • Rosen und Porree - stories, 1959
  • KAFF auch Mare Crisium - novel, 1960
  • Belphegor - dialogues, 1961
  • Sitara und der Weg dorthin - biography, 1963
  • Nobodaddy's Kinder - 1963; collects Aus dem Leben eines Fauns, Brand's Haide, Schwarze Spiegel
  • Kühe in Halbtrauer - stories, 1964
  • Die Ritter vom Geist - dialogues, 1965
  • Trommler beim Zaren - stories, 1966
  • Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas - stories, 1966
  • Der Triton mit den Sonnenschirm - dialogues, 1969
  • Zettels Traum
    Zettels Traum
    Zettels Traum is a novel written in 1970 by German author Arno Schmidt. Schmidt began writing the novel in December 1963 while he and Hans Wollschläger began to translate the works of Edgar Allan Poe into German...

    - novel, 1970
  • Die Schule der Atheisten - novel, 1972
  • Abend mit Goldrand - novel, 1975
  • Alexander oder, Was ist Wahrheit - stories, 1975
  • Krakatau - story, 1975
  • Julia, oder die Gemälde - novel (unfinished), 1983

English Translations

  • The Egghead Republic - 1979 (Die Gelehrtenrepublik, trans. Michael Horovitz
    Michael Horovitz
    Michael Horovitz is an English poet, artist and translator.-Life and career:Michael Horovitz was the youngest of ten children who were brought to England from Nazi Germany by their parents, both of whom were part of a network of European-rabbinical families...

    )
  • Evening Edged in Gold - 1980 (Abend mit Goldrand, trans. John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

    )
  • Scenes from the Life of a Faun - 1983 (Aus dem Leben eines Fauns, trans. John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

    )
  • Collected Early Fiction, 1949-1964, in four volumes (all trans. John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

    ):
    • Collected Novellas - 1994
    • Nobodaddy's Children - 1995
    • Collected Stories - 1996
    • Two Novels (The Stony Heart & B/Moondocks) - 1997 (Das steinerne Herz & KAFF auch Mare Crisium)
  • Radio Dialogs I - 1999 (trans. John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

    )
  • The School for Atheists - 2001 (Die Schule der Atheisten, trans. John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

    )
  • Radio Dialogs II - 2003 (trans. John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

    )
  • Bottom's Dream - forthcoming (Zettels Traum
    Zettels Traum
    Zettels Traum is a novel written in 1970 by German author Arno Schmidt. Schmidt began writing the novel in December 1963 while he and Hans Wollschläger began to translate the works of Edgar Allan Poe into German...

    , trans. John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

    )

Further reading

  • Karl-Heinz Müther: Bibliographie Arno Schmidt 1949–1991, Bielefeld 1992 (in German, continued)
  • Wolfgang Martynkewicz: Arno Schmidt. Reinbek 1992. ISBN 3499504847 (in German)
  • Marius Fränzel: Dies wundersame Gemisch: Eine Einführung in das erzählerische Werk Arno Schmidts. Kiel (Ludwig) 2002, ISBN 978-3933598547 (in German)
  • »Arno Schmidt? - Allerdings!« 2006 (Marbacher Kataloge) (Arno Schmidt Exhibition, Marbach 2006).
  • Robert Weninger: Framing a novelist: Arno Schmidt criticism 1970-1994. Columbia, S.C., Camden House 1995.
  • Tony Phelan: Rationalist narrative in some works of Arno Schmidt. Coventry, Univ. of Warwick 1972.

See also

  • Eberhard Schlotter
    Eberhard Schlotter
    Eberhard Schlotter works as an international painter in Spain and Germany. He is the brother of the sculptor Gotthelf Schlotter ....

  • John E. Woods
    John E. Woods
    John E. Woods is a translator who specializes in translating German literature, since about 1978. His work includes much of the fictional prose of Arno Schmidt and the works of contemporary authors such as Ingo Schulze and Christoph Ransmayr...

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