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For more information on Karl Kraus, visit Britannica.com.
| German Literature Companion: Karl Kraus |
Kraus, Karl (Gitschin, now Jičin, Czech Republic, 1874-1936, Vienna), came with his Jewish parents as a 3-year-old to Vienna, where he spent the whole of his life except for brief visits to other cities. He broke off his studies at Vienna University when he discovered his ability to earn his living by writing. He began his journalistic work in 1892 with a review of Hauptmann's Die Weber for the Wiener Literatur-Zeitung. In the 1890s he contributed to a number of German as well as Viennese journals and published two pamphlets, Die demolirte Litteratur (1897, repr. 1972, first in serial form in the Wiener Rundschau, 1896-7) and the anti-Zionist Eine Krone für Zion (1898). The former marks his breach with his associates of the ‘Jung-Wien’ circle, the latter a disillusion that led to his renouncing the Jewish faith in 1899 and joining the Roman Catholic Church, from which he seceded in 1923.
A pronounced individualist, Kraus founded in 1899 his own periodical, Die Fackel; it continued to appear, though latterly at irregular intervals, until his death. A man of great intellectual integrity and equal mental agility, Kraus proved himself a formidable, often dreaded and hated, satirist. For years he attacked the Viennese press, because he regarded its imprecision of language and its literary pretensions as corrupting cultural influences. The Neue Freie Presse was his principal target, partly because it was the most ‘literary’ of the Viennese newspapers. Kraus identified personal and political integrity with integrity of expression, and carried on a relentless single-handed campaign against slovenly, pretentious, or deceptive language. He combined a concern for social reform with a rigorous cultural conservatism, but refused to involve himself in party politics. He attacked individuals as well as parties, groups, and ideas; particular targets were H. Bahr, A. Kerr, and M. Harden. One of his causes was penal reform (Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität, 1908, and Die chinesische Mauer, 1910). His reaction to the 1914-18 War was repulsion, rising to violent hostility expressed in the huge, apocalyptic tragedy Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (final version 1926). Collected anti-war essays appeared in book form as Weltgericht (2 vols., 1919). In the 1920s he published a succession of satirical plays, including Literatur (1921), a riposte to F. Werfel's Spiegelmensch, and Die Unüberwindlichen (1928). Kraus made himself unpopular with many former associates through his support of Dollfuß, whom he regarded as a bulwark against National Socialism. The disaster which 1933 represented evoked no commensurate public utterance from Kraus, who, however, wrote a long prophetic denunciation intended as an issue of Die Fackel in 1933 but held it back from publication in book form, partly out of fear of consequences for his friends in Germany. It appeared as Die dritte Walpurgisnacht in 1952. Notable other publications include the collections of aphorisms, Sprüche und Widersprüche (1909), Pro domo et mundo (1912), and Nachts (1918), and of the tracts Maxi-milian Harden. Eine Erledigung (1907) and Nestroy und die Nachwelt (1912). His poems appeared as Worte in Versen (9 vols., 1916-30). No writer has so vigorously and tenaciously held that language is a moral criterion, and that its abuse or misuse proves moral cor-ruption. His essays on language appeared in 1937 as Die Sprache (ed. P. Berger).
In his last years Kraus adapted some plays of Shakespeare as Shakespeares Dramen. Für Hörer und Leser bearbeitet (2 vols., 1934-5, ed. by H. Fischer as supplement to Werke, 2 vols., 1970), and in 1933 published the Sonnets as Shakespeares Sonette. Nachdichtung von Karl Kraus (repr. 1964). He condemned the renderings by S. George in Sakrileg an George oder Sühne an Shakespeare? (Die Fackel, Dec. 1932). One of the greatest satirists, Kraus was devoted to what he conceived to be the highest spiritual values. Devastating in his criticism of the contemporary theatre, including the Burgtheater and the Salzburg Festival, he advanced as an alternate form of performance the notion of the ‘Theater der Dichtung’ that underlies his extensive activity as a reader of plays and lecturer. These public performances served to promote both his own works and views and the works of favourites such as Nestroy and Offenbach (1819-80). His polemics against Heine have remained controversial.
Die Fackel appeared in 39 vols., 1968-73, and
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Karl Kraus |
| Psychoanalysis: Karl Kraus |
1874-1936
Karl Kraus, an Austrian writer, was born April 28, 1874, in Bohemia and died in Vienna on July 12, 1936.
He was the ninth child of the businessman and manufacturer Jakob Krauss and his wife Ernestine. The family moved to Vienna in 1877. Kraus became interested in the theater while still quite young. He studied law, philosophy, and German, and worked as a critic for several magazines; he published an essay in 1897 in which he denounced the excesses of fin-de-siècle decadence (Gustav Klimt) and attacked his friend Hugo von Hofmannsthal. In 1910 the first reading of Kraus's work was held in Berlin. This was followed by approximately seven hundred other readings in different European cities, where the work of other authors was read—William Shakespeare, Johann Nestroy, Frank Wedekind, Jacques Offenbach—some of which had been translated and adapted by Kraus.
Kraus converted to Catholicism in 1911 but abandoned the religion in 1923. In 1913 he had an affair with Sidonie Nadherny von Borutin, which was cut short by her marriage in 1920. She left the marriage six months later to join Kraus. In 1933 he wrote a text critical of Hitler that was published only after his death, but a poem of his clearly indicated his position. In 1936 he was struck by a cyclist and died on July 12.
His writing first appeared in Die Fackel (The Torch), which he founded and managed by himself from 1899 to 1936. Kraus examined the "small things" of everyday life, which he elevated into a general criticism of corruption and social conformity, especially that of the press, whose influence was growing. Kraus, in his criticism, was ambiguous about the question of Judaism, and in it he expressed what Otto Weininger referred to as hatred of the Jewish self. His pacifism, before and during the First World War, resulted in various forms of censorship. His "faith in language," a language he tried to master, was a constant factor: "Language is the mother of thought, not its servant."
Freud was one of the readers of Die Fackel around 1903, and mentioned it for the first time in 1905 in relation to his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. In 1906 Kraus took part in the accusation of plagiarism launched by Wilhelm Fliess. Freud, who thought he saw an ally in Kraus, tried to meet him. The tone changed in 1910, however, after Fritz Wittels, who had been a prolific collaborator at Die Fackel but had left the magazine, gave a presentation before the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society entitled the "Neurosis of Die Fackel." In his paper he caricatured Kraus's aversion to the Neue Freie Presse as the expression of a death wish against the father. When Kraus learned of Wittel's talk, he let loose the slings of his barbed wit against psychoanalysis itself.
Bibliography
Kraus, Karl (1975). Cahier Karl Kraus. Paris: L'Herne, Cahiers de l'Herne.
——. (1985). Pro domo et mundo. Paris: Gérard Lebovici.
——. (1986). La nuit venue. Paris: Gérard Lebovici.
Nunberg, Hermann, and Federn, Ernst. (1962-1975). Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. New York: International Universities Press.
Porge, Erik. (1994). Vol d'idées?. Paris: Denoël.
Waldvogel, A. (1990). Karl Kraus und die Psychoanalyse. Eine historisch-dokumentarische Untersuchung. Psyche—Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen 1990, 44 (5), 412-444.
Timms, Edward. (1986). Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic satirist: Culture and catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
—ERIK PORGE
| Quotes By: Karl Kraus |
Quotes:
"Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave."
"The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity."
"The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test."
"Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots."
"Adults who still derive childlike pleasure from hanging gifts of a ready-made education on the Christmas tree of a child waiting outside the door to life do not realize how unreceptive they are making the children to everything that constitutes the true surprise of life."
"A man's eroticism is a woman's sexuality."
See more famous quotes by
Karl Kraus
| Wikipedia: Karl Kraus |
Karl Kraus (April 28, 1874 – June 12, 1936) was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian politics.
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Kraus was born into a wealthy Jewish family of Jacob Kraus, a papermaker, and his wife Ernestine, née Kantor, in Gitschin, Bohemia (now Jičín in the Czech Republic). The family moved to Vienna in 1877. His mother died in 1891.
Kraus enrolled as a law student at the University of Vienna in 1892. Beginning in April of the same year he began contributing to the paper Wiener Literaturzeitung, starting with a critique of Gerhart Hauptmann's Die Weber. Around that time, he unsuccessfully tried to perform as an actor in a small theater. In 1894 he changed his field of studies to philosophy and German literature. He discontinued his studies in 1896. His friendship with Peter Altenberg began about this time.
In 1896 he left university without a diploma to begin work as an actor, stage-director and performer, joining the Jung Wien (Young Vienna) group, which included Peter Altenberg, Leopold Andrian, Hermann Bahr, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Felix Dörmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Felix Salten. In 1897, however, Kraus broke from this group with a biting satire Die demolierte Literatur (Demolished Literature), and was named Vienna correspondent for the newspaper Breslauer Zeitung. One year later, as an uncompromising advocate of Jewish assimilation, he attacked the founder of modern Zionism Theodor Herzl with his polemic Eine Krone für Zion (A Crown for Zion) (1898).
On April 1, 1899, he renounced Judaism and in the same year founded his own newspaper, Die Fackel (The Torch), which he continued to direct, publish, and write until his death, and from which he launched his attacks on hypocrisy, psychoanalysis, corruption of the Habsburg empire, nationalism of the pan-German movement, laissez-faire economic policies, and numerous other bêtes noires. In 1901, Kraus was sued by Hermann Bahr and Emmerich Bukovics, who felt they had been attacked by Die Fackel. Many lawsuits by diverse offended parties would follow in later years. Also in 1901, Kraus found out that his publisher, Moriz Frisch, had taken over his magazine while he was absent on a months-long journey: Moriz Frisch had registered the magazine's front cover as a trademark and published the Neue Fackel (New Torch). Kraus sued and won. From that time, Die Fackel was published (without a cover page) by the printer Jahoda & Siegel.
While at the beginning Die Fackel was similar to journals like the magazine Weltbühne, it became more and more a magazine that was privileged in its editorial independence, which Kraus could provide by his funding. Die Fackel printed what Kraus wanted to be printed. In its first decade, contributors included many well-known writers and artists such as Peter Altenberg, Richard Dehmel, Egon Friedell, Oskar Kokoschka, Else Lasker-Schüler, Adolf Loos, Heinrich Mann, Arnold Schönberg, August Strindberg, Georg Trakl, Frank Wedekind, Franz Werfel, Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Oscar Wilde. After 1911, however, Kraus was usually the sole author. Kraus' work was published nearly exclusively in Die Fackel, of which 922 irregularly-issued numbers appeared in total. Authors who were supported by Kraus include Peter Altenberg, Else Lasker-Schüler, and Georg Trakl.
Die Fackel targeted corruption, journalists and brutish behaviour. Notable enemies were Maximilian Harden (in the mud of the Harden-Eulenburg affair), Moriz Benedikt (owner of the newspaper Neue Freie Presse), Alfred Kerr, Hermann Bahr, Imre Bekessy and Johannes Schober.
In 1902, Kraus published Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität (Morality and Criminal Justice), for the first time commenting on what was to become one of the main issues in his writings: the allegedly necessary defense of sexual morality by means of criminal justice (Der Skandal fängt an, wenn die Polizei ihm ein Ende macht, The scandal starts when the police is stopping it).[1] Starting in 1906, Kraus published the first of his aphorisms in Die Fackel; they were collected in 1909 in the book Sprüche und Widersprüche (Sayings and Gainsayings).
In addition to his writings, Kraus gave numerous highly influential public readings during his career - between 1892 and 1936 he put on approximately 700 one-man performances, reading from the dramas of Bertolt Brecht, Gerhart Hauptmann, Johann Nestroy, Goethe, and Shakespeare, and also performing Offenbach's operettas, accompanied by piano and singing all the roles himself. Elias Canetti, who regularly attended Kraus' lectures, titled the second volume of his autobiography "Die Fackel" im Ohr ("The Torch" in the Ear) in reference to the magazine and its author.
In 1907, Kraus attacked his erstwhile benefactor Maximilian Harden because of his role in the Eulenburg trial in the first of his spectacular Erledigungen (Dispatches).
After an obituary for Franz Ferdinand who had been assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, Die Fackel was not published for many months. In December 1914, it appeared again with an essay "In dieser großen Zeit" ("In this grand time"): "In dieser großen Zeit, die ich noch gekannt habe, wie sie so klein war; die wieder klein werden wird, wenn ihr dazu noch Zeit bleibt; […] in dieser lauten Zeit, die da dröhnt von der schauerlichen Symphonie der Taten, die Berichte hervorbringen, und der Berichte, welche Taten verschulden: in dieser da mögen Sie von mir kein eigenes Wort erwarten."[2] ("In this grand time that I still know from when it was very small; that will become small again if it has the time; […] in this loud time that resounds from the ghastly symphony of deeds that spawn reports, and from reports that are to blame for deeds: in this one, you may not expect any word of my own.") In the subsequent time, Kraus wrote against the World War, and editions of Die Fackel were repeatedly confiscated or obstructed by censors.
Kraus' masterpiece is generally considered to be the massive satiric play about the First World War, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind), which combines dialogue from contemporary documents with apocalyptic fantasy and commentary from two characters called "the Grumbler" and "the Optimist". Kraus began to write the play in 1915 and first published it as a series of special Fackel issues in 1919. Its epilogue, "Die letzte Nacht" ("The last night") had already been published in 1918 as a special issue. Edward Timms has called the work a "faulted masterpiece" and a "fissured text" because the evolution of Kraus' attitude during the time of its composition (from aristocratic conservative to democratic republican) means that the text has structural inconsistencies resembling a geological fault.[3] Also in 1919, Kraus published his collected war texts under the title Weltgericht (World court of justice). In 1920, he published the satire Literatur oder Man wird doch da sehn (Literature or You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet) as a reply to Franz Werfel's Spiegelmensch (Mirror man), an attack against Kraus.
During January 1924, he started to fight against Imre Békessy, publisher of the tabloid Die Stunde (The Hour). Kraus accused Békessy of extorting money from restaurant owners by threatening them with bad reviews in his paper unless they paid him. Békessy retaliated with a libel campagne against Kraus, who in turn launched an Erledigung with the catchphrase "Hinaus aus Wien mit dem Schuft!" ("Throw the scoundrel out of Vienna"). In 1926, Békessy indeed fled Vienna in order to avoid being arrested. In the following year, Kraus unsuccessfully tried a similar undertaking against Johann Schober, police prefect during the forcefully suppressed July Revolt. (Békessy achieved some later success when his novel Barabbas was the monthly selection of an American book club.)
In 1928, the play Die Unüberwindlichen (The insurmountables) was published. It included allusions to the fights against Békessy and Schober. During that same year, Kraus also published the records of a lawsuit that Kerr had filed against him after Kraus had published Kerr's war poems in Die Fackel.
In 1932, Kraus translated Shakespeare's sonnets. He supported the Austrian dictator Engelbert Dollfuss, hoping Dollfuß could prevent Nazism from engulfing Austria. This estranged him from some of his followers. When asked why he never said anything about Hitler, he is reputed to have retorted: "When I think of Hitler, nothing occurs to me".
His last work, which he declined to publish for fear of Nazi reprisals, was the verbally rich, densely allusive anti-Nazi polemic Die Dritte Walpurgisnacht (The Third Walpurgisnacht). However, lengthy extracts appear in his apologia for his silence at Hitler's coming to power, Warum die Fackel nicht erscheint (Why the Fackel Does Not Appear), a 315-page edition of his periodical. The last issue of the Fackel appeared in February 1936. Karl Kraus died of an embolism of the heart in Vienna on June 12, 1936 after a short illness.
Kraus never married, but from 1913 until his death, he had a conflict-prone but close relationship with the Baroness Sidonie Nádherný von Borutin (1885-1950). Many of his works were written in Janowitz castle, Nádherny family property. Sidonie Nádherny became an important pen-friend and addressee of books and poems.
In 1911 he was baptized as a Catholic, but in 1923, disillusioned over the Church's support for the war, he left the Catholic Church, claiming sarcastically that he was motivated "primarily by antisemitism", i.e. indignation at Max Reinhardt's use of the Kollegienkirche in Salzburg as the venue for a theatrical performance.[4] Kraus is buried in the Zentralfriedhof cemetery outside Vienna.
Kraus was the subject of two books written by noted libertarian author Dr. Thomas Szasz. Karl Kraus and the Soul Doctors and Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry portrayed Kraus as a harsh critic of Sigmund Freud and of psychoanalysis in general. Other commentators, such as Edward Timms, have argued that Kraus respected Freud, though with reservations about the application of some of his theories, and that his views were far less black-and-white than Szasz suggests.[5]
Karl Kraus has been a subject of opposing opinions throughout his lifetime. This polarisation was undoubtedly strengthened by his immense sense of his own importance. This self-image was not completely unfounded: those who attended his performances were fascinated by his personality. His followers saw in him an infallible authority, someone who would do anything to help those he supported.
To the numerous enemies he made due to the inflexibility and intensity of his partisanship, however, he was a bitter misanthrope and poor would-be (Alfred Kerr). He was accused of wallowing in hateful denouncements and Erledigungen.
Karl Kraus was convinced that every little error, albeit of an importance that was seemingly limited in time and space, shows the great evils of the world and era. Thus, he could see in a missing comma a symptom of that state of the world that would allow a world war. One of the main points of his writings was to show the great evils inherent in such seemingly small errors.
Language was to him the most important tell-tale for the wrongs of the world. He viewed his contemporaries' careless treatment of language as a sign for their careless treatment of the world as a whole.
Ernst Křenek reported the following typical episode: Als man sich gerade über die Beschießung von Shanghai durch die Japaner erregte und ich Karl Kraus bei einem der berühmten Beistrich-Problemen antraf, sagte er ungefähr: Ich weiß, daß das alles sinnlos ist, wenn das Haus in Brand steht. Aber solange das irgend möglich ist, muß ich das machen, denn hätten die Leute, die dazu verpflichtet sind, immer darauf geachtet, daß die Beistriche am richtigen Platz stehen, so würde Shanghai nicht brennen.“[6] (At a time when one was generally decrying the bombardment of Shanghai by the Japanese, I met Karl Kraus struggling over one of his famous comma problems. He said something like: I know that everything is futile when the house is burning. But I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for if those who are obliged to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place, then Shanghai would not be burning.)
He accused people — and most of all journalists and authors — of using language as a means that they believed to command rather than serving it as an end. To Kraus, language is not a means to distribute ready-made opinions, but rather the medium of thought itself. As such, it is in need of critical reflection. Therefore, dejournalising his readers was an important concern of Kraus in "a time that is thoroughly journalised, that is informed by the spirit but is deaf to the unity of form and contents". He wanted to educate his readers to an "understanding of the cause of the German language, to that height at which the written word is understood as a necessary incarnation of the thought, and not simply a shell demanded by society around an opinion."
Kraus maintained that language may not be entirely subjected to man's wishes. Even in its most maimed state, it will still show the true state of the world. Even war enthusiasts will unwittingly point out the cruel butchery during the war when calling it Mordshetz (an Austrian word for great fun that can also be read as murderous chase).
Kraus saw the press as his supreme enemy and the "nether regions" of literature: his views on societal and cultural issues were less clearly defined, and his political preferences were shifting. He sympathized now with Social Democrats, now with Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In some ways, Kraus' criticism prefigured contemporary critics of the press such as Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman. But it must not be forgotten that Kraus' criticism was primarily moral, not political. Moreover, his cultural background was not that of the 'New Left' but instead that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: his emphasis on precision, and his dislike of rhetoric and the baroque demonstrates links between his views and those of Ludwig Wittgenstein (in his early works) and Adolf Loos, amongst others.
Some work has been re-issued in recent years:
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The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided... The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.

- Karl Kraus