Gottfried Keller

(d London, 1704, before 25 Nov). German composer resident in England. Well known in London as a teacher of the harpsichord, he wrote a Compleat Method (published 1705) for thorough-bass, and many sonatas primarily for combinations of wind instruments, of which three for trumpet (1700) are especially interesting.

(b Zurich, 19 July 1819; d Zurich, 15 July 1890). Swiss writer, painter and critic. In his youth in Zurich he considered the professions of writer and painter and initially chose the latter. His artistic interests were probably inherited from his father, an amateur artist, and he developed his talents through continuous sketching. In 1834-5 he was apprenticed to an engraver, Peter Steiger (1804-74), who encouraged his talent but gave little advice on painting or artistic theory. He began to paint landscapes in earnest after 1835, when he was inspired by an exhibition of the works of Fran?ois Diday. In 1837 he worked with the landscape painter Rudolf Meyer (1803-57), who trained Keller's eye and hand to observe and record nature. At this time Keller also began to paint watercolours en plein air (e.g. View on the Sihl, 1837; Zurich, Zentbib.). His meticulous studies have strong similarities to the topographical paintings of Johann Jakob Biedermann and Johann Ludwig Aberli, whose work Keller admired. His subject-matter became influenced by the prevailing Romanticism of the period, as in Medieval Town (c. 1839; Zurich, Zentbib.), which is a product of his imagination rather than observation. He painted his first oils in 1839 but continued to work mainly in watercolour, a medium that particularly suited his temperament. He also broadened his style considerably, working more deliberately to capture atmospheric effects (e.g. View near Zurich, 1839; Zurich, Zentbib.) and to employ a rich array of blue and green tones. In 1840 he went to Munich, where he lived in poverty. In 1841 he exhibited his works for the first time; they were favourably received by critics, who observed that he had been influenced by such German landscape painters as Carl Rottmann (e.g. Scene of the Limmat Valley from the Hottinberg, 1842; St Gall, Kstmus.). Keller's paintings are also similar to the classically inspired landscapes of Joseph Anton Koch, as seen in Heroic Landscape (1841; Zurich, Zentbib.). Critics noted that this work was a carefully contrived essay in landscape composition, giving evidence of a close study of the paintings of Poussin and Claude. He returned to Zurich in 1842 and by this time was beginning to develop a career in literature. He felt that his talents did not lie in the visual arts, although he continued to paint for his own pleasure, producing mainly watercolours of great imagination and vivid colour (e.g. Mondsee, 1873; Winterthur, Kstmus.) until his death.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The Swiss short-story writer, novelist, and poet Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) was a master of the realistic novella and author of one of the outstanding German novels of his age.

Gottfried Keller was born in Zurich on July 19, 1819, and grew up in great poverty. He managed to go to Munich to study painting, but after 2 fruitless years his insufficient talent drove him home (1842), disillusioned and distraught.

Keller's life was marked by aimlessness and general inactivity, except for the publication of Gedichten (1846), a volume of poetry, until a government grant in 1848 permitted study at Heidelberg. There he met the atheistic philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and the literary historian Hermann Hettner, who showed him where his real talents lay. Both greatly influenced his work.

During a 5-year stay in Berlin (1850-1855), Keller began writing in earnest. Neuere Gedichte, a second volume of poems, displayed notable lyric talent. Der grüne Heinrich (1854-1855; revised 1880), a Bildungs-roman (educational novel) like Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, is largely autobiographical, depicting the frustrations of a would-be artist. The work is regarded as one of the greatest German novels of the century.

In a series of stories called Die Leute von Seldwyla (1856), Keller's deep warmth and kindly humor manifest themselves as he points up the little failings of fictitious fellow Swiss with amiable indulgence and probing insight. The series contains Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, a tragic story of two lovers thwarted by an unfriendly world, and is one of his finest narratives. Frederick Delius based an opera, The Village Romeo and Juliet (1907), on the story.

After returning to Zurich, Keller curtailed his writing, devoting his time to important duties as first secretary of the canton, an appointment he held until retirement (1876). His next work was Sieben Legenden (1872), a series of medieval legends told with disarming charm and simplicity. Its success established Keller's reputation. Five more stories in the Seldwyla series appeared in 1874, among them Kleider machen Leute, one of his best-known and best-loved tales.

The Züricher Novellen (1878), dealing with actual personalities from Zurich's past, again exhibits Keller's interest in the realistic portrayal of wholesome personality development. The cycle contains two of his finest stories: Der Landvogt von Greifensee and Das Fähnlein der sieben Aufrechten. Das Sinngedicht (1881) is a series of tales humorously describing a young man's search for a suitable mate. After publishing his collected poetry in 1882, Keller wrote his last work, Martin Salander (1886), a rather uninspired novel of Swiss political affairs.

Keller died in Zurich on July 15, 1890, acclaimed as a truly great figure of 19th-century German literature. Keller's writing displays uncommon geniality, zest for living, and rich humor. His gently moralizing style is direct, forceful, and vivid, revealing remarkable inventiveness and adroit characterization.

Further Reading

Most of Keller's works are available in English; see especially Kuno Francke, ed., The German Classics, vol. 14 (1914), for several of the novellas. Der Grüne Heinrich was translated as Green Henry by A. M. Holt (1960). Marie Hay, The Story of a Swiss Poet (1920), is a good general introduction, particularly valuable for its detailed account of the stories. A short but trenchant study appears as a chapter in Camillo von Klenze, From Goethe to Hauptmann (1926). Walter Silz, Realism and Reality (1954), contains an excellent evaluation of Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe. See also the biographical essay in Alex Natan, ed., German Men of Letters (1961). For general background see Edwin Keppel Bennett, A History of the German Novelle (2d ed. rev. by H. M. Waidson, 1961).

Additional Sources

Ruppel, Richard R., Gottfried Keller: poet, pedagogue, and humanist, New York: P. Lang, 1988.

Keller, Gottfried (Zurich, 1819-90, Zurich), was the son of a turner, who had married a doctor's daughter. His father died in 1824, and his mother maintained the family by letting apartments in her substantial house. Keller was expelled from school in 1834, an act which he resented as an injustice. Its echoes are heard in Der grüne Heinrich. He resolved to become a painter, and was sent for a time to live among his numerous relations around Glattfelden, his father's birthplace. On his return he had instruction from two teachers in Zurich, Peter Steiger and Rudolf Meyer. In 1840 he realized his modest assets and established himself in Munich, at that time the artistic metropolis of Germany. His efforts to develop as a painter were frustrated by poverty and, though he did not realize this at the time, by insufficiency of talent. He returned home in 1842.

In the 1840s Keller's literary talent developed; he wrote many poems, some of faded romantic character but mostly political or reflective. He was at this stage a keen Radical, admiring the poetry of G. Herwegh and A. Follen. He was also active in journalism, notably as an art critic. In 1846 a volume of his poems appeared as Gedichte, and a further volume followed in 1851 (Neuere Gedichte). In 1848 Keller received a grant from the cantonal government to enable him to study at a university, and he spent three semesters at Heidelberg, from the autumn of 1848 to the spring of 1850. This period was decisive in his development. The lectures of L. Feuerbach undermined his belief in Christianity, and a friendship with H. Hettner, then a young lecturer, directed his attention to Goethe and to the drama. In April 1850 he travelled to Berlin, where he was to remain for five years. He did not like the city, and his literary contacts were mostly fleeting (they included Scherenberg and the members of Der Tunnel über der Spree, including Th. Fontane), but he received some help from Varnhagen von Ense.

Keller's intention had been to become a dramatist. He did not complete a single play, but he discovered his capacity for fiction. Not only did he write the massive novel Der grüne Heinrich, which appeared in its first version in 1854-5, he also began his most popular work, the collection of Novellen Die Leute von Seldwyla (1856). This contains five stories (the remainder did not appear until 1873-4). Late in 1855 Keller returned to Zurich, where his Novellen had established his reputation as a writer. He did not leave Zurich again. He maintained a correspondence with several men of letters, especially Th. Storm and P. Heyse.

In 1861 Keller was appointed clerk to the canton of Zurich (Erster Staatsschreiber), and for fifteen years he meticulously discharged the duties of his office. His writings in these busy years were sparse, consisting essentially of the charming Sieben Legenden (1872) and the reissue of Die Leute von Seldwyla with the additional volumes of 1874. He resigned in 1876 in order to devote himself to writing, publishing the 2 vols. of Züricher Novellen (1878-9), the revised version of Der grüne Heinrich (1879-80), Das Sinngedicht (1882), and his second and last novel, Martin Salander (1886). His collected poems appeared as Gesammelte Gedichte (1883).

Keller did not marry, though in 1866 he became engaged to a young woman of 22, who drowned herself in the same year, apparently in consequence of doubts about Keller's character provoked by slanders published in newspapers which were politically hostile to him. That he was susceptible to the attractions of women is clear from his works. He proposed (by letter) to two young women, Luise Rieter in 1847 and Johanna Kapp in 1849. Both declined, and he discovered that Johanna and Feuerbach, a married man, were in love. In Berlin he was attracted to Betty Tendering, the unmarried sister of the wife of Duncker, his publisher. He was not able to bring himself to declare his love for her. She is generally regarded as the original of Dortchen Schönfund in Der grüne Heinrich. Keller's mother, born in 1787, lived with her son in Zurich; after her death his sister, who died in 1888, kept house for him.

If Keller's philosophical ideas often seem austere, his personality, as his works suggest, was lively and humorous, and possessed a tenderness which he often disguised. His range encompasses profound passion and grotesque comedy, political preaching and sensitive legends, providing a conspectus of human nature. He is one of the foremost representatives of Poetic Realism (see Poetischer Realismus). Historischkritische Ausgabe (22 vols.), ed. J. Fränkel and C. Helbling, appeared 1926-49, and Gesammelte Briefe (4 vols.), ed. C. Helbling, 1950-4, correspondence with Storm, ed. P. Goldammer, 1960; Sämtliche Werke (8 vols.), ed. P. Goldammer, 1958, and ed. Th. Böning, G. Kaiser, and D. Müller 1985 ff. A new historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. W. Morgenthaler, U. Amrein, Th. Binder, and D. Müller, began to appear in 1996.

Keller around 1860

Gottfried Keller memorial at Enge (Zürich) harbour

Gottfried Keller (July 19, 1819 – July 15, 1890), a Swiss writer of German literature, was best known for his novel Green Henry (German: Der grüne Heinrich).

Life and work

Educated at the Industrieschule in Zürich but then expelled in a political mix-up, Keller had to find work when he was 15. He became an apprentice in 1834 to the landscape-painter Steiger and in 1837 to the water-colourist Rudolf Meyer (1803-1857); then studied art for a time at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (Bavaria).

Keller returned to Zürich in 1842 and, although possessing artistic talent, took up writing. He published his first poems, Gedichte, in 1846. From 1848 to 1850 he studied at the University of Heidelberg, and from 1850 to 1855 worked in Berlin. In 1855, he published a semi-autobiographical novel, Green Henry, drawing on his youth and career (or more precisely non-career) as a painter up to 1842. In any case, with this novel he won genuine acclaim. He returned again to Zürich and became the First Official Secretary of the Canton of Zürich (Erster Zürcher Staatsschreiber) in 1861. In 1872 he published Seven Legends (Sieben Legenden), which dealt with the early Christian era. He retired from his cantonal post in 1876 in order to continue his writing.

A master story-teller, Keller wrote some of the best-known German-language short-stories of the late 19th century. His other works include The People of Seldwyla [Die Leute von Seldwyla] (1856-1874) (including the story A Village Romeo and Juliet [Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe], the basis of the Delius opera A Village Romeo and Juliet), Zurich Novellas [Züricher Novellen] (1877), Collected Poetry [Gesammelte Gedichte] (1883) and the novel Martin Salander (1886).

See also

• Lyric poetry

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gottfried Keller

• Works by Gottfried Keller at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Gottfried Keller at Zeno.org (German)

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