Adalbert Stifter | |
|---|---|
 Stifter | |
| Born | 23 October 1805 Oberplan,Bohemia |
| Died | 28 January 1868 (aged 62) Linz,Austria-Hungary |
| Resting place | St. Barbara-Friedhof inLinz, Austria |
| Occupation | Novelist, poet, painter, pedagogue |
| Language | German |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna |
| Period | 1830–1868 |
| Genre | Bildungsroman |
| Notable works | Bergkristall,Der Nachsommer,Witiko |
| Spouse | Amelia Mohaupt (1837–1868) |
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Adalbert Stifter (German:[ˈʃtɪftɐ]; 23 October 1805 – 28 January 1868) was aBohemian-Austrian writer, poet, painter, andpedagogue. He was notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world.
Born in Oberplan in Bohemia (nowHorní Planá in theCzech Republic), he was the eldest son of Johann Stifter, a wealthylinenweaver, and his wife, Magdalena. Johann died in 1817 after being crushed by an overturned wagon. Stifter was educated at the Benedictine Gymnasium atKremsmünster, and went to theUniversity 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 them, Juliana, ran away several times and finally disappeared, only to be found drowned in theDanube four weeks later.
As a man of strongliberal convictions who welcomed the1848 revolutions and allowed his name to go forward as a candidate in theFrankfurt Parliament, even suspected by others of being a radical, the cornerstone of Stifter's philosophy wasBildung (personal and cultural maturation through education).[1][2] Instead of becoming a state official, he became atutor to the aristocrats ofVienna, and was highly regarded as such. His students included Princess Maria Annavon Schwarzenberg and the son of German statesmanKlemens von Metternich,Richard 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 visitedLinz in 1848, and moved there permanently a year later, where he became editor of theLinzer Zeitung and theWiener Bote. In 1850 he was appointed supervisor of elementary schools forUpper Austria.
His physical and mental health began to decline in 1863, and he became seriously ill fromcirrhosis of the liver in 1867. In deep depression, he slashed his neck with a razor[3] on the night of 25 January 1868 and died three days later.
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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, butThomas Mann 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 theBiedermeier movement in literature. As Carl Schorske puts it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept ofBildung, compounded ofBenedictine world piety, Germanhumanism, and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novelDer Nachsommer".[4]
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 novelsDer Nachsommer andWitiko.
Stifter'sDer Nachsommer (1857) andGottfried Keller'sSeldwyla Folks (German:Die Leute von Seldwyla) were named the two great German novels of the 19th century byFriedrich Nietzsche.[5]Der Nachsommer is considered one of the finest examples of theBildungsroman, 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". The excessive detail for which Hebbel derided the novel, is, according to Christine Oertel Sjögren, "precisely a source of fascination for modern scholars, who seize upon the number of objects as the distinguishing characteristic of this novel and accord it high esteem because of the very significance of the 'things' in it. Far from being extraneous elements, as Hebbel regarded them, the art and nature objects provide a rich setting of beauty and a mirror-background to the human story in the foreground." [3]:20
Witiko is a historical novel set in the 12th century, a strange work panned by many critics, but praised byHermann Hesse and Thomas Mann posting[citation needed]xDietrich Bonhoeffer found great comfort from his reading ofWitiko while in Tegel Prison under Nazi arrest.[6]
In the German edition of hisReminiscences,Carl Schurz recalls his meeting with the daughter of the keeper of the Swiss inn he was staying at whose favorite book was Stifter'sStudien.[7] This incident occurred prior to 1852.
He was named as an influence byW. G. Sebald, and bothW. H. Auden andMarianne Moore admired his work, the latter co-translatingBergkristall asRock Crystal withElizabeth Mayer in 1945. Auden included Stifter in his poem "Academic Graffiti" as one of the celebrities, literary and otherwise, captured in aclerihew: Adalbert Stifter / Was no weight-lifter: / He would hire old lags / To carry his bags.[8]
InHermann Hesse'sSteppenwolf, the main character Harry Haller wonders "whether it isn't time to follow the example of Adalbert Stifter and have an accident while shaving".
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."
In the satirical novelOld Masters byThomas Bernhard, the main character Reger gives a vitriolic rant disparaging Stifter's fiction.
Rilke[9] and Hugo von Hofmannsthal[10] were deeply indebted to his art.[citation needed]
In 2007 German theater directorHeiner Goebbels, inspired by works of Adalbert Stifter, composed and directed a musical installation calledStifters Dinge (Stifter's Things), which premiered in 2007 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, inLausanne, Switzerland.[11]
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