Péter Szondi (ˈpeːtɛr ˈsondi; May 27, 1929, Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 — November 9, 1971, 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...

) was a celebrated literary scholar and philologist, originally from Hungary. His father was the Hungarian-Jewish psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Léopold Szondi

Léopold Szondi

Léopold Szondi was a Hungarian psychiatrist, born in present day Slovakia and raised in a a German and Slovak speaking family. He is known for the psychological tool that bears his name, the Szondi test. He developed a form of depth psychology that had some prominence in Europe in the mid-20th...

, who settled in Switzerland after his 1944 release from Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...

.http://www.szondiforum.org/showdoc.php?id=481

In 1965, he became a Professor at the Free University of Berlin

Free University of Berlin

Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...

, where he led the Institute for General and Comparative Literature. His fields were the history of literature

History of literature

The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempts to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. Not all...

 and comparative literature

Comparative literature

Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...

.

He committed suicide in 1971.

Works

• Über eine "Freie Universität". Suhrkamp, 1973
• Die Theorie des bürgerlichen Trauerspiels im 18. Jahrhundert. Suhrkamp, 1973
• Celan
  Paul Celan
  Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
  
  -Studien. Suhrkamp, 1972
• Hölderlin
  Friedrich Hölderlin
  Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
  
  -Studien. Insel, 1967
• Satz und Gegensatz. Insel, 1964
• Der andere Pfeil Insel, 1963
• Versuch über das Tragische Insel, 1961
• Theorie des modernen Dramas. Suhrkamp, 1956
• "Hope in the Past: On Walter Benjamin", reprinted in Benjamin, W
  Walter Benjamin
  Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
  
   (trans. Howard Eiland), Berlin Childhood Around 1900, 2006, Belknap Press [Harvard UP]. ISBN 067402222X

External links

• Peter Szondi and Critical Hermeneutics, an issue of TELOS
  TELOS (journal)
  Telos is an academic journal published in the United States. It was founded in May 1968 to provide the New Left with a coherent theoretical perspective. It sought to expand the Husserlian diagnosis of "the crisis of European sciences" to prefigure a particular program of social reconstruction...
  
  (140, Fall 2007)