Theodor Mundt
Mundt, Theodor (Potsdam, 1808-61, Berlin), was educated at the Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium in Berlin and at Berlin University, and after graduating devoted himself to journalism, editing Die Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung (1832) in Leipzig and Literarischer Zodiacus (1835). A short politico-philosophical novel (Moderne Lebenswirren, 1834) satirized Germany as ‘Kleinweltwinkel’, and his feministic and sensual novel Madonna (1835) earned him inclusion in the federal denunciation of Junges Deutschland in December 1835.From 1835 Mundt sought to qualify as a university teacher, encountering for years determined political opposition. He was finally admitted in 1842. Meanwhile he had continued his journalism with the periodicals Dioskuren für Kunst und Wissenschaft (1836-7), Der Freihafen (1838-44), and Der Pilot (1840-3), and had written a memoir of Charlotte Stieglitz (Charlotte Stieglitz. Ein Denkmal, 1836). His Die Kunst der deutschen Prosa urges that German written prose should discard its intricacies and base itself on speech. Mundt became a lecturer at Berlin in 1842, was appointed professor at Breslau in 1848 and at Berlin in 1850. He wrote abundantly on contemporary affairs and literature (Charaktere und Situationen, 1837; Spaziergänge und Weltfahrten, 1838-9; Geschichte der Literatur der Gegenwart, 1842; Geschichte der Gesellschaft, 1844; Ästhetik, 1845; Geschichte der deutschen Stände, 1854). Ästhetik was republished in 1966 and Die Kunst der deutschen Prasa in 1969 (both ed. H. Düvel). Mundt's later novels (Thomas Münzer, 1841; Mendoza, 1846-7; Die Matadore, 1850; Graf Mirabeau, 1858) are of slight importance. In 1839 he married Klara Müller, who is known as a novelist under the pseudonym Luise Mühlbach.
