Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow ((1811-03-17)17 March 1811 inBerlin –(1878-12-16)16 December 1878 inSachsenhausen) was a German writer and dramatist who promoted political and socialreformism. He studied philosophy and theology withGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel andFriedrich Schleiermacher, and his early works, like the novelMaha-Guru, Geschichte eines Gottes (1833), were satirical. His 1835 novelWally, die Zweiflerin led to his imprisonment and suppression, marking the start of theYoung Germany movement. His plays, especiallyUriel Acosta (1847, based onUriel da Costa), influenced German andYiddish theater.
Born to a poor Berlin war-office clerk,[1][2] Gutzkow may have rebelled against his father's strictpietism in his lateragnosticism.[1]
He began studying philosophy and theology[2] with Hegel and Schleiermacher at theUniversity of Berlin in 1829.[3] For theAugsburg Confession's tercentenary in June 1830, Hegel delivered an address in Latin asrector, declaring thatProtestant Prussia reconciled religion, philosophy, and ethical life (Sittlichkeit).[4]
But news of theJuly Revolution in Paris stirredradical politics.[1] AfterFrederick William III's birthday celebration, Gutzkow wrote:[5]
Hundreds of students thronged behind the barrier in front of which sat the professors, the government officials, the military. [...] The crown prince smiled, but everyone who read the newspapers knew that in France a king had just been knocked off his throne. [...] Hegel [...] announced the winners of the academic competitions [...]. I myself heard with one ear that I had won the prize in the philosophical faculty over six competitors, and with the other about a people who had overthrown a king, about the thunder of cannons and about thousands who had fallen in battle [...]. Scientific academic study lay behind me, history before me.
Hegel saw "catastrophe" in theRevolutions of 1830 but reaffirmed hisdialectic before dying in 1831.[6] Amid theVormärz reaction,[7] spurred also by the populistErweckungsbewegung [de] (Awakening),[8] his followers split, and some wereradicalized.[7]Right Hegelians' and centrists'reformism often slid intoaccommodationism orfundamentalism. TheYoung Hegelians soughtdivinity in human life andcommunity, veering intorevolutionary, atheistichumanism.[7] A "theologizingPaul", Gutzkow wrote that his bent for the Hegelian "Damascus experience" faded as he became a "philosophizingSaul".[9]
Gutzkow began his literary career at university with the 1831 periodicalForum der Journalliteratur, leadingWolfgang Menzel to hire him to co-edit Stuttgart'sLiteraturblatt.[2] But Menzel, wroteDavid Friedrich Strauss, tried "to muzzle the spirit of the times".[10]
Gutzkow continued studies across the Universities ofJena,Heidelberg, andMunich, publishingBriefe eines Narren an eine Närrin (1832, Hamburg) anonymously. He wrote a fantastic, satirical Tibetan romance novel,Maha-Guru, Geschichte eines Gottes (1833, Stuttgart,Cotta),[2] and founded theDeutsche Revue inFrankfurt, where he was living in 1835.[2]
Influenced by Strauss'sLife of Jesus and French ideas likeHenri de Saint-Simon's theory of theemancipation of the flesh, Gutzkow's novelWally, die Zweiflerin (1835) was acritique ofrevelation andmarriage, exalting its heroine's agnostic, emancipated views.[1][2] TheGerman Federal Assembly promptly banned his writings and those ofHeinrich Heine,Heinrich Laube,Ludolf Wienbarg, andTheodor Mundt by December 1835.[citation needed] This arguably marked the start of theYoung Germany movement, whose literary reformers anticipated theGerman revolutions of 1848–1849.[11]
The Assembly sentenced Gutzkow to three months' imprisonment, barred him from editing in theGerman Confederation, and officially suppressed his work. This only amplified it.[2] During hisMannheim imprisonment, Gutzkow wrote his treatiseZur Philosophie der Geschichte (1836). He returned to Frankfurt upon release and moved to Hamburg in 1837.[2]
He began a new literary phase with the tragedyRichard Savage (1839), which was staged across Germany. The comediesZopf und Schwert (1844),Das Urbild des Tartüffe (1847), andDer Königsleutnant (1849) entered the Germany repertory, as did theblank verse tragedyUriel Acosta (1847). He moved toDresden in 1847 to succeedLudwig Tieck as literary adviser to the court theater.[2]
He continued writing novels withSeraphine (1838),Blasedow und seine Söhne (a satire on the educational theories of the time),[when?] andDie Ritter vom Geiste (1850–1852),[12] arguably the first Germansocial novel.Der Zauberer von Rom[when?] is a social allegory ofRoman Catholic life in southern Germany.[2]
AfterDie Ritter vom Geiste, Gutzkow founded the journalUnterhaltungen am häuslichen Herd (1852–1865, after Dickens'Household Words).[2]
An 1864 epileptic seizure reduced his theatrical work, but he wrote the historical novelsHohenschwangau (1868) andFritz Ellrodt (1872), plusDie Söhne Pestalozzis (1870, based onKaspar Hauser) and the autobiographical sketchesLebensbilder (1870–1872). After another seizure, Gutzkow visited Italy in 1873 and then retired to the countryside near Heidelberg before returning to Frankfurt, where he died on 16 December 1878.[2]
Gutzkow was among the first Germans to try to make a living by writing. He promoted theemancipation of the Jews in works likeUriel Acosta, which was translated to become a Yiddish theater staple. A reformer rather than a revolutionary, he grew more conservative with age[3] and fell into neglect by 1910.[2] His polemical work reflected generational struggles and shaped German thought.[11]
His five-act comedyZopf und Schwert (1844) was twice adapted: the 1926 filmSword and Shield byAafa-Film, andEdmund Nick's 1940operettaÜber alles siegt die Liebe (Love Conquers Everything) toBruno Hardt-Warden [de]'s libretto.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gutzkow, Karl Ferdinand".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 744–745.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
