Karl Leberecht Immermann

Immermann, Karl Leberecht (Magdeburg, 1796-1840, Düsseldorf), offspring of a family with a Prussian civil service tradition, began to study law at Halle University in 1813. The dissolution of the university on French orders interrupted his course, and he became a volunteer rifleman, but was prevented by illness from taking part in the campaign of 1813 (see Napoleonic Wars). On the renewal of hostilities in 1815 Immermann volunteered again, served at Waterloo, and was in the force which entered Paris. He was commissioned, but was demobilized in December, and returned to his studies at the reinstituted university at Halle. Here he made a name for himself by opposing the student corporation (see Burschenschaft Teutonia). In 1818 he was appointed to the Prussian civil service and posted first to Oschersleben, and in 1819, after brief service in Magdeburg, was sent to Münster. Here a close friendship began between Immermann and Countess Elisa von Lützow, wife of General Adolf von Lützow. The marriage was dissolved in 1825, and the Countess, declining to remarry, lived with Immermann until his marriage in 1839 to Marianne Niemeyer. Meanwhile, Immermann was posted, at his own request, to Magdeburg, where he served as a judge. Three years later, in 1827, he became Landgerichtsrat in Düsseldorf, where he remained for the rest of his short life. At the time of his death he was at work on his memoirs, Memorabilien (1840-3), planned in three parts, which remained unfinished.

Immermann wrote several, largely derivative, plays, including the comedies Die Prinzen von Syrakus (1821) and Das Auge der Liebe (1824), the tragedy König Periander und sein Haus (1823), and an adaptation of Gryphius's Cardenio und Celinde with the same title (1826). His most successful dramatic work, Das Trauerspiel in Tyrol (1828), was later revised and retitled Andreas Hofer (1834). Finding himself mocked in Platen's comedy Der romantische Ödipus, he replied with Der im Irrgarten der Metrik umhertaumelnde Kavalier (1829), a title which alludes to a novel by J. G. Schnabel. The verse satire Tulifäntchen and a verse drama (Eine Mythe) Merlin followed in 1830 and 1832. Immermann's interest in the theatre led him to found a theatrical society in Düsseldorf, and from 1835 to 1837 he acted as director to the city theatre, for a time supporting C. D. Grabbe.

In 1822 Immermann completed his first novel, Die Papierfenster eines Eremiten, but he wrote his principal works in the 1830s: Die Epigonen (3 vols., 1836) and Münchhausen (4 vols., 1838-9), the latter containing the village story which was published separately in 1863 as Der Oberhof, and is probably the best, and certainly the best known, of all his writings.

Despite obvious talent, Immermann did not rise above literary dilettantism until a few years before his death. His numerous verse plays and epics lean heavily upon earlier models, notably Shakespeare and Romanticism, but in his late novels, especially in Münchhausen, he sought to exploit simultaneously fantasy and realism, with irony as the link between these two elements; it seems that his real gift lay with the early style of poetic realism (see Poetischer Realismus) rather than with the past generation of Romantics.

Schriften (14 vols.) appeared 1835-43, Sämtliche Werke, ed. R. Boxberger (20 pts. in 8 vols.), 1883, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. M. Koch (4 vols.), 1887-8, select Werke, ed. H. Maync (5 vols.), 1906, and (6 pts. in 3 vols.), ed. W. Deetjen, 1908-11 (reissued in 1923), Werke in fünf Bänden, ed. B. von Wiese, 1971-8, Briefe (3 vols.), ed. P. Hasubek, 1978-87, and Zwischen Poesie und Wirklichkeit. Tagebücher 1831-1840, ed. P. Hasubek, in 1984.

Karl Leberecht Immermann.

Karl Leberecht Immermann (April 24, 1796 – August 25, 1840) was a German dramatist and novelist.

He was born at Magdeburg, the son of a government official. In 1813 he went to study law at Halle, where he remained, after the suppression of the university by Napoleon in the same year, until Frederick William III of Prussia's "Summons to my people" on March 17. Immermann responded quickly, but was prevented by illness from taking part in the earlier campaign; he fought, however, in 1815 at Ligny and Waterloo, and marched into Paris with Blücher.

At the conclusion of the war he resumed his studies at Halle, and after being Referendar in Magdeburg, was appointed in 1819 Assessor at Münster in Westphalia. Here he made the acquaintance of Elise von Lützow, Countess von Ahlefeldt, wife of Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm Freiherr von Lützow. She inspired him to begin writing, and their relationship is reflected in several dramas written about this time.

In 1823 Immermann was appointed judge at Magdeburg, and in 1827 was transferred to Düsseldorf as Landgerichtsrat or district judge. The countess, whose marriage had in the meantime been dissolved, followed him, and, though refusing marriage, shared his home until 1839, when he married a granddaughter of August Hermann Niemeyer (1754-1828), chancellor and rector perpetuus of Halle University. In 1834 Immermann undertook the management of the Düsseldorf theatre, and, although his resources were small, succeeded for two years in raising it to a high level of excellence. The theatre, however, was insufficiently endowed to allow of him carrying on the work, and In 1836 he returned to his official duties and literary pursuits. He died at Düsseldorf.

Immermann had considerable aptitude for the drama, but it was long before he found a congenial field for his talents. His early plays are imitations, partly of Kotzebue's, partly of the Romantic dramas of Ludwig Tieck and Müller, and are now forgotten. In 1826, however, appeared Cardenio und Celinde, a love tragedy of more promise; this, as well as the earlier productions, awakened the ill-will of Count Platen, who made Immermann the subject of his wittiest satire, Der romantische Oedipus. Between 1827 and 1832 Immermann redeemed his good name by a series of historical tragedies, Das Trauerspiel in Tirol (1827), Kaiser Friedrich II. (1828) and a trilogy from Russian history, Alexis (1832). His masterpiece is the poetic mystery, Merlin (1831), a noble poem, which, like its model, Faust, deals with the deeper problems of modern spiritual life.

Immermann's important dramaturgic experiments in Düsseldorf are described in detail in Düsseldorfer Anfänge (1840). More significant is his position as a novelist. Here he clearly stands on the boundary line between Romanticism and modern literature; his Epigonen (1836) might be described as one of the last Romantic imitations of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, while the satire and realism of his second novel, Münchhausen (1838), form a complete break with the older literature.

As a prose-writer Immermann is perhaps best remembered to-day by the admirable story of village life, Der Oberhof, which is embedded in the formless mass of Münchhausen. His last work was an unfinished epic, Tristan und Isolde (1840).

Immermann's Gesammelte Schriften were published in 14 vols. in 1835-1843; a new edition, with biography and introduction by R Boxberger, in 20 vols. (Berlin, 1883); selected works, edited by M Koch, (4 vols, 1887-1888) and F Muncker (6 vols, 1897). See G zu Putlitz, Karl Immermann, sein Leben und seine Werke (2 vols, 1870); Ferdinand Freiligrath, Karl Immermann, Blätter der Erinnerung an ihn (1842); Wilhelm Müller, K. Immermann und sein Kreis (1860); R Fellner, Geschichte einer deutschen Musterbühne (1888); K. Immermann: eine Gedächtnisschrift (1896).

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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