Karl Gutzkow

Gutzkow, Karl Ferdinand (Berlin, 1811-78, Sachsenhausen nr. Frankfurt/Main), was the son of a groom employed to school horses in the service of a Prussian royal prince. He was educated at the Friedrichwerdersches Gymnasium in Berlin and then studied theology and philosophy at Berlin University. The outbreak of the July Revolution in Paris (see Julirevolution) provoked him to break off his studies in 1830 in order to devote himself to politics, in which he was at this time a patriotic radical of the Burschenschaft school. He became a political journalist in 1831, assisting W. Menzel on the Literaturblatt in Stuttgart. At this time he wrote a novel (Maha Guru, 1833) satirizing, in the guise of an oriental story, the Christian religion as practised in Germany.

In 1833 Gutzkow left Menzel and briefly resumed his studies, first at Heidelberg University, then in Berlin. After an Italian journey with H. Laube, his increasingly radical views on social matters led to a breach with Menzel, but Gutzkow found a home for his rapidly executed writings in the Morgenblatt, Cotta's Stuttgart journal. Here he published a series of articles, later collected and published as Öffentliche Charaktere, and also the Novelle Der Sadduzäer von Amsterdam (1834). In 1835 his novel of the emancipated woman, Wally die Zweiflerin, achieved notoriety and drew a savage attack from his old chief Menzel. The attempt to use literature as a lever to shift rooted prejudices and to set up a new social and political order was brought to an abrupt halt in December 1835 when a federal decree instructed member states to act against the new subversive writers, including Gutzkow (see Junges Deutschland). Gutzkow was summoned, on the evidence of Wally die Zweiflerin, for blasphemy and for bringing the Christian religion into contempt. He was acquitted of blasphemy, but convicted on the second charge and sentenced to a month's imprisonment (1836).

Gutzkow married in the summer of 1836, and soon after became editor of the Frankfurter Börsenzeitung. In 1837 he founded the periodical Der Telegraph für Deutschland, which was taken over in 1838 by Hoffmann und Campe in Hamburg, who retained Gutzkow as editor. The novels Seraphine and Blasedow und seine Söhne appeared in 1838. The former is partially autobiographical; Blasedow satirizes the educational views of J. B. Basedow. At this point Gutzkow turned away from the novel and devoted himself to writing plays which dealt, in historical disguise, with political and social ideas of the day, and not infrequently with his own emotional life. He had already tried his hand at a play (Tragikomödie), Nero (1835), which was in mixed verse and prose, and also had written a fragment of a verse play (Marino Falieri). Three scenes of Hamlet in Wittenberg bring Hamlet and Ophelia into contact with Faust. Gutzkow's career as a dramatist, however, takes its real departure with the prose tragedy Richard Savage (1839), which was followed by some seventeen other plays mostly performed in the years 1840-56. Of these, the most important are Werner oder Herz und Welt (Schauspiel, 1840), the comedies Zopf und Schwert (1844) and Das Urbild des Tartüffe (1845), the tragedies Patkul (1842), Uriel Acosta (1846), Pugatscheff (1847), and Jürgen Wullenweber (1848, see Wullenwever, J.), and Ella Rose (Drama, 1856). The dates are those of performance. Gutzkow's Dramatische Werke were published 1842-57 (9 vols.). Mention should also be made of the occasional play Der Königsleutnant composed for the Goethe Centenary in 1849.

Gutzkow grew tired of editing Der Telegraph and after making a visit to Paris moved to Frankfurt in 1842. In Hamburg he had begun a liaison with a Frau Therese von Bacheracht (see Struwe, Th. von), which produced a triangular situation that taxed the nerves of all three participants. In 1846 he accepted an appointment as Dramaturg at the Court Theatre, Dresden, where he remained until 1848. He was in Berlin at the time of the Revolution, but took no active part in the events of the day. Here his wife died, and in 1849 he made a second marriage (not with Frau von Bacheracht).

At this point Gutzkow's dramatic production began to slacken and he turned again to writing novels. Die Ritter vom Geiste, a nine-volume work referred to as a Zeitgemälde and dealing mainly with contemporary social, political, and philosophical ideas, appeared in 1850-1. Gutzkow regarded it as a new type of novel, der Roman des Nebeneinander, a cross-section of intellectual life at one point of time. From 1852 to 1862 he edited the Unterhaltungen am häuslichen Herd, in which some of his own shorter writings appeared. A second large-scale novel, Der Zauberer von Rom (9 vols., 1859-61), dealt with the Roman Catholic Church and particularly with Ultramontanism.

From 1861 to 1864 Gutzkow was secretary of the Schiller Foundation in Weimar, where his pathological nervousness led to difficulties and friction. His state deteriorated into persecution mania and in 1865 he made an attempt at suicide in Friedberg, Hesse. After his recovery he continued to write novels, publishing Hohenschwangau (5 vols., 1867-9), Die Söhne Pestalozzis (3 vols., 1870, see Hauser, Kaspar), and Fritz Ellrodt (2 vols., 1872). He became increasingly restless and frequently changed his place of residence, living in turn in Vevey, Hanau, Berlin (1869-74), Heidelberg, and Sachsenhausen (Frankfurt). He completed his last novel (Die neuen Serapionsbrüder, 3 vols., 1877) in 1875. He died of suffocation by smoke, and it is supposed that he overturned a lamp while under self-administered sedation.

The first collection of his works, Gesammelte Werke (13 vols., 1845-52), was followed in his last years by Gesammelte Werke (12 vols.), 1873-6. Ausgewählte Werke were edited by H. H. Houben (12 vols., 1908). Werke in 15 Teilen (7 vols.), ed. R. Gensel, appeared in 1912 (reissued 1974).

Though much of his work was outwardly historical, Gutzkow's main interest lay with topical ideas and attitudes, to which he was often unable to give convincing expression in terms of human character; but he handled conventional dramatic forms with competence. His tendency to hurried writing was aggravated by the need to live by his pen, and much of his work represents an uneasy compromise between the man of letters and the journalist. But his immense novel Die Ritter vom Geiste is a remarkable achievement which has been consistently underrated.

Quotes:

"There must be hearts which know the depths of our being, and swear by us, even when the whole world forsakes us."

"Oh, how powerfully the magnet of illusion attracts."

"People give us credit only for what we ourselves believe."

Karl Gutzkow

Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow (born March 17, 1811(1811-03-17) in Berlin, died December 16, 1878 in Sachsenhausen) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.

Contents 1 Life 2 Adaptations 3 References 4 External links

Life

Gutzkow's father held a clerkship in the war office in Berlin, and, after completing his basic studies, Gutzkow studied theology and philosophy in the local university under Hegel and Schleiermacher.^{[citation needed]}

While still a student, he began his literary career by the publication in 1831 of a periodical entitled Forum der Journalliteratur. This brought him to the notice of Wolfgang Menzel, who invited him to Stuttgart to assist in the editorship of the Literaturblatt. At the same time he continued his university studies at Jena, Heidelberg and Munich. In 1832 he published anonymously at Hamburg Briefe eines Narren an eine Närrin, and in 1833 appeared at Stuttgart Maha-Guru, Geschichte eines Gottes, a fantastic and satirical romance. In 1835 he went to Frankfort, where he founded the Deutsche Revue.^[1] While Gutzkow started out as a collaborator of Wolfgang Menzel, he ended up his adversary.^{[citation needed]}

In the same year his novel Wally die Zweiflerin appeared. From its publication of which may be said to date the school of writers who, from their opposition to the literary, social and religious traditions of romanticism, received the name of “Young Germany.” The work was directed specially against the institution of marriage and the belief in revelation; and whatever interest it might have attracted from its own merits was enhanced by the action of the German federal diet, which condemned Gutzkow to three months' imprisonment, decreed the suppression of all he had written or might yet write, and prohibited him from exercising the functions of editor within the German confederation.^[1] This was used as a pretext in order to ban the works of many other progressive writers, amongst them Heinrich Heine.^{[citation needed]}

During his term of imprisonment at Mannheim, Gutzkow employed himself in the composition of his treatise Zur Philosophie der Geschichte (1836). On obtaining his freedom he returned to Frankfort, whence he went in 1837 to Hamburg. Here he inaugurated a new epoch of his literary activity by bringing out his tragedy Richard Savage (1839), which immediately made the round of all the German theatres. Of his numerous other plays the majority are now (1911) neglected; but a few have obtained an established place in the repertory of the German theatre, especially the comedies Zopf und Schwert (1844), Das Urbild des Tartüffe (1847), Der Königsleutnant (1849) and the blank verse tragedy, Uriel Acosta (1847). In 1847 Gutzkow went to Dresden, where he succeeded Tieck as literary adviser to the court theatre. Meanwhile he had not neglected the novel. Seraphine (1838) was followed by Blasedow und seine Söhne, a satire on the educational theories of the time. Between 1850 and 1852 appeared Die Ritter vom Geiste, which may be regarded as the starting-point for the modern German social novel. Der Zauberer von Rom is a powerful study of Roman Catholic life in southern Germany. The success of Die Ritter vom Geiste suggested to Gutzkow the establishment of a journal on the model of Dickens's Household Words, entitled Unterhaltungen am häuslichen Herd, which first appeared in 1852 and was continued till 1862. In 1864 he had an epileptic fit, and his productions show henceforth decided traces of failing powers. To this period belong the historical novels Hohenschwangau (1868) and Fritz Ellrodt (1872), Lebensbilder (1870-1872), consisting of autobiographic sketches, and Die Söhne Pestalozzis (1870), the plot of which is founded on the story of Kaspar Hauser. On account of a return of his nervous malady, Gutzkow in 1873 made a journey to Italy, and on his return took up his residence in the country near Heidelberg, whence he removed to Frankfort-on-Main, dying there on the 16th of December 1878.^[1]

Gutzkow was the editor of the Telegraph für Deutschland and became one of Germany's eminent critics. The novels Die Ritter vom Geist (1850/51) and Der Zauberer von Rom (1856/61) were very successful; Gutzkow used his new Simultantechnik in them^{[citation needed]}.

Gutzkow was never a revolutionary, and he became more conservative with age. He was one of the first Germans who tried to make a living by writing^{[citation needed]}. With his play Uriel Acosta, and other works, he stood up for the emancipation of the Jews^{[citation needed]}.

Adaptations

His comedy in 5 acts Zopf und Schwert (1844) received two adaptations; in 1926 Aafa Film AG made the movie Zopf und Schwert - Eine tolle Prinzessin, and Edmund Nick used it for his operetta Über alles siegt die Liebe (Love Conquers Everything) (1940, libretto by Bruno Hardt-Warden).

References

1. ^ ^{a b c}  "Gutzkow, Karl Ferdinand". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

External links

• Works by Karl Gutzkow at Zeno.org (German)
• Works by Karl Gutzkow at Project Gutenberg

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