Karl Eduard von Holtei
Encyclopedia
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...
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...
and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
.
Life and career
Karl Eduard von Holtei was born at Breslau, the son of an officer of HussarHussar
Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century, tracing its roots from Serbian medieval cavalry tradition, brought to Hungary in the course of the Serb migrations, which began in the late 14th century....
s. Having served in the Prussian army
Prussian Army
The Royal Prussian Army was the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.The Prussian Army had its roots in the meager mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War...
as a volunteer in 1815, he shortly afterwards entered the University of Breslau as a student of law; but, attracted by the stage, he soon forsook academic life and made his debut in the Breslau theatre as Mortimer in Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
's Mona Stuart. He led a wandering life for the next two years, appearing less on the stage as an actor than as a reciter of his own poems. In 1821 he married the actress Luise Roge (1800-1825), and was appointed theatre-poet to the Breslau stage. He next removed to Berlin, where his wife fulfilled an engagement at the Court theatre. During his sojourn here he produced the vaudevilles Die Wiener in Berlin (1824), and Die Berliner in Wien (1825), pieces which enjoyed at the time great popular favour.
In 1825 his wife died; but soon after her death he accepted an engagement at the Königsstädter theatre in Berlin, when he wrote a number of plays, notably Lenore (1828), based on Gottfried August Bürger
Gottfried August Bürger
Gottfried August Bürger was a German poet. His ballads were very popular in Germany. His most noted ballad, Lenore, found an audience beyond readers of the German language in an English adaptation and a French translation.-Biography:He was born in Molmerswende , Principality of Halberstadt, where...
's ballad
Lenore (ballad)
Lenore, sometimes translated as Leonora, Leonore or Ellenore, is a poem written by German author Gottfried August Bürger in 1773, and published in 1774 in the Göttinger Musenalmanach...
, and Der alte Feldherr (1825). In 1830 he married Julie Holzbecher (1809-1839), an actress engaged at the same theatre, and with her played in 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...
. Returning to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in 1831 he wrote for the composer Franz Gläser (1798-1861) the text of the opera Des Adlers Horst (1832), and for Ludwig Devrient
Ludwig Devrient
Ludwig Devrient was a German actor, noted for his playing in the works of Shakespeare and Schiller.Devrient, who was born in Berlin, left a commercial career for the stage in 1804. He was a member of a notable theatrical family. His three nephews were actors...
the drama, Der dumme Peter (1837).
In 1833 Holtei again went on the stage and toured with his wife to various important cities, 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...
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
and 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...
. In the last his declamatory powers as a reciter, particularly of Shakespeare's plays, made a furore, and the poet-actor was given the appointment of manager of the Josefstädter theatre in the last-named city. Though proud of his successes both as actor and reciter, Holtei left Vienna in 1836, and from 1837 to 1839 conducted the theatre in Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
. Here his second wife died, and after wandering through Germany reciting and accepting a short engagement at Breslau, he settled in 1847 at Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, where he devoted himself to a literary life and produced the novels Die Vagabunden (1851), Christian Lammfell (1853) and Den letzte Komödiant (1863). The last years of his life were spent at Breslau, where being in poor circumstances he found a home in the Kloster der Barmherzigen Brüder, and here he died.
As a dramatist Holtei may be said to have introduced the vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
into Germany; as an actor, although remaining behind the greater artists of his time, he contrived to fascinate his audience by the dramatic force of his exposition of character as a reciter, especially of Shakespeare, he knew no rival. August Lewald
August Lewald
August Lewald was a German author.-Biography:Lewald was born at Königsberg. He entered the Russian service at Warsaw, as secretary, during the War of Liberation. He became an actor, and after 1818 he was manager and director of theatres at Hamburg, Stuttgart, and elsewhere...
said of Holtei that by the energy of his poetic conception and plastic force he brought his audience round to his own ideas; and he added, "an eloquence such as his I have never met with in any other German."
Holtei was not only a stage-poet but, a lyric-writer of great charm. Notable among such productions are Schlesische Gedichte (1830; 20th ed., 1893), Gedichte (5th ed., 1861), Stimmen des Waldes (2nd ed., 1854). Mention ought also to be made of Holtei's interesting autobiography, Vierzig Jahre (8 vols., 1843-1850; 3rd ed., 1862) with the supplementary volume Noch ein Jahr in Schlesien (1864).
Holtei's Theater appeared in 6 vols. (1867); his Erzählende Schriften, 39 vols. (1861-1866). See M. Kurnick, Karl von Holtei, ein Lebensbild (1880); F. Wohl, Zeit und Menschen (1889); O. Storch, K. von Holtei (1898).