Theodor Storm

The German poet and novelist Theodor Storm (1817-1888) ranks as one of the finest lyric poets in German literature, but modern readers know him best for his novellas, a form in which he was a recognized master.

Theodor Storm was born on Sept. 14, 1817, at Husum, an old coastal town in Schleswig. His father, of humble origin, was an attorney, but his mother, whose interest in family life, art, and nature Storm inherited, had a patrician heritage. From 1837 to 1842 he studied law, principally at Kiel, where he became a friend of Theodor Mommsen, later a celebrated historian, and his brother, together with whom he published a volume of poetry in 1843. A volume of his own poetry, issued in 1852, was expanded through a seventh edition in 1885. In 1843 Storm began to practice law at Husum, and he married Konstanze Esmarch 3 years later. They had seven children.

Mood Novels

All of Storm's works have a lyrical quality, but shifting emphases allow them to be divided into groupings. His first novella, Immensee (1850), is the most popular of his stories. A charming, romantic idyll, it is told through the technique of reminiscence, has little action, and projects a lyrical mood of melancholy and resignation. Storm treated the same theme in Ein grünes Blatt (1855) and in Späte Rosen (1861). The device of reminiscence also occurs in Auf dem Staatshof (1851), Im Schloss (1861), and Sankt Jürgen (1867).

When Storm's native province came under Danish dominion (1853), his staunch patriotism prompted his voluntary exile, first to Potsdam, then to Heiligenstadt (1856), where he became a district judge. Schleswig's liberation in 1864 enabled Storm to return to Husum. But the years of exile had been a harshly bitter experience. An additional blow was the death of his wife a year later. Though Storm soon married again happily, his tragic sense of life had been quickened. Most of his later stories reveal a certain pessimism, an increasingly deterministic conception of life, and a note of dismay in the face of life's transitoriness and enigmatic quality.

Realistic and Historical Novels

Until 1870 Storm's narratives dealt with sentimental situations that emphasized mood. A change in his style occurred during the following decade, beginning with Draussen im Heidehof (1871). The novellas of this period exhibit a greater realism of execution and logic of motivation. An element of drama in the action, which remains psychological in character, was also introduced. Representative stories include Viola Tricolor (1873), Pole Poppenspäler (1874), Psyche (1875), and Ein stiller Musikant (1875). Storm next turned to the production of a number of historical novels. This group includes Aquis Submersus (1875), thought by some critics to be his finest novella, as well as Carsten Curator (1877), Renate (1878), and Eekenhof (1879), all of which rank among his best tales. These stories show man in his lonely struggle against a dark and often tragic destiny.

Storm spent the years after 1880 in retirement. He died on July 4, 1888, at Hademarschen. Some of the finest of his more than 50 novellas derive from this period. These works are marked by the fullest realization of his powers as a narrator of man's conflicts with his fellowman. Outstanding among his late works are Die Söhne des Senators (1881), Hans und Heinz Kirch (1883), Ein Fest auf Haderslevhuus (1885), and Der Schimmelreiter (1888).

Further Reading

Two works in English on Storm are by Otto Wooley, Studies in Theodor Storm (1943) and Theodor Storm's World in Pictures (1954). Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades (1948), contains a chapter on Storm. For background see John G. Robertson, A History of German Literature (1902; rev. ed. 1970).

Additional Sources

Jackson, David A., Theodor Storm: the life and works of a democratic humanitarian, New York: Berg: St. Martin's Press distributor, 1992.

Storm, Theodor (1817–88), German novelist and lyric poet who studied law at Kiel and Berlin. During this time he fell in love with the 11‐year‐old Bertha von Buchan, who later rejected his proposal. For her, he composed numerous poems and his first fairy tale, ‘Hans Bär’ (1837), written in the Grimm tradition. Storm gained renown for novellas of poetic realism, but he also kept on writing fairy tales, resulting from a lifelong interest in mythology and folklore. His most popular fairy tale, Der kleine Häwelmann (The Little Häwelmann, 1849), written for his 1‐year‐old son, is the story of a child's nocturnal journey in its cradle. ‘Hinzelmeier’ (1857), a tale about the choice between the philosopher's stone and the rose maiden, deviates from the traditional fairy‐tale pattern in not providing a happy ending. In 1866 Storm published the book Drei Märchen (Three Fairy Tales, 1873), consisting of three tales previously published individually in magazines: ‘Bulemanns Haus’ (‘Bulemann's House’), ‘Die Regentrude’ (‘The Rain Maiden’), and ‘Der Spiegel des Cyprianus’ (‘Cyprianus' Mirror’). ‘Bulemanns Haus’ is the uncanny tale about the literal decline of a stingy misanthropist. In ‘Die Regentrude’, Storm combines an old folk tale with the love story of two young peasants who are sent to wake up the rain maiden in order to avert the drought caused by her deep sleep. ‘Der Spiegel des Cyprianus’ is based on a theme that recurs in Storm's later works: unbridled passion as destructive power.

Bibliography

• Artiss, David S., ‘Theodor Storm's Four Märchen: Early Examples of his Prose Technique’, Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 14 (1978).
• Freund, Winfried, ‘Ruckkehr zum Mythos: Mythisches und symbolisches Erzählen in Theodor Storms Märchen “Die Regentrude”’, Schriften der Theodor‐Storm‐Gesellschaft, 35 (1986).
• Hansen, Hans‐Sievert, ‘Narzissmus in Storms Märchen: Eine psychoanalytische Interpretation’, Schriften der Theodor‐Storm‐Gesellschaft, 26 (1977).

— Caroline Schatke

Storm, Theodor Woldsen (Husum, Schleswig, 1817-88 Hademarschen, Holstein), studied law, which he practised for the greater part of his life in his native Husum before his retirement, in 1880, from his office as Amtsgerichtsrat. During the years of political crisis over the possession of Schleswig-Holstein (see Schleswig-Holsteinische Frage) Storm had to leave Husum with his family because his refusal to recognize the Danish occupation cost him his post. After an unpaid assignment with the Prussian civil service in Potsdam (1853-6), during which he depended upon his father's financial support, he settled as a stipendiary magistrate in Heiligenstadt, but, after the settlement of the political crisis, took the first opportunity to return to his native Husum (1864), which offered him the office of Landvogt.

During his student years, which (with the exception of three semesters in Berlin) were spent in Kiel, he became deeply attached to Berta von Buchau, an eleven-year-old girl, upon their first acquaintance. The courtship ended in frustration when she rejected his proposal of marriage in 1842. Soon after settling down as a lawyer (1843) Storm became engaged to his cousin Konstanze Esmarch, whom he married in 1846. A year after her death and after the family's return to Husum, he married Dorothea Jensen (1866), a friend of long standing. Neither marriage was initially easy, but both grew happy, though Storm remained a stern father and tutor to his sons, the oldest of whom predeceased him as a result of alcoholism. Storm's literary work sprang from personal experience rather than political attitudes. He was impatient both of the privileged nobility and of Prussia, and this antagonism did not diminish during the years spent in Prussian service; his contacts in Berlin with the literary club Der Tunnel über der Spree, and notably with Th. Fontane, sharpened his northern individualism, though they stimulated his development as a writer. His strong personality was nurtured by his profoundly emotional sensibility and an increasing scepticism, which inclined him to determinism.

Storm's early production was fostered by the influence of Romantic writers and of Mörike, with whom he corresponded and whom he once visited. He commented (1882) that his prose narrative grew out of his poetry, to which he first devoted himself under the influence of Theodor Mommsen. Storm formed a friendship with Theodor and his brother Tycho Mommsen at school, and the three were joint editors of the Liederbuch dreier Freunde (1843). Storm's own contributions reflect the frustrations of his love for Berta, from which he sought to free himself by writing Immensee (1851), the Novelle which established his reputation as a writer and which has been the introduction to German literature for countless English readers. This lyrical Novelle aims at integrating song and narrative in a way which Storm admired in Mörike's Maler Nolten. Storm set store by the therapeutic effect of reminiscences, which characterize, with at times excessive melancholy, his narrative technique, especially in stories involving a frame (see Rahmen).

In a number of poems Storm's creative vein and consciousness of form achieve the high standard which he set for himself in comments to friends and in his introduction to the anthology Hausbuch aus deutschen Dichtern seit Claudius (1870). ‘Schließe mir die Augen beide’ (set by Alban Berg), ‘Trost’ and ‘Auf einen Kirchturm’ demonstrate his mastery of epigrammatic brevity, ‘Die Nachtigall’ his reticent sensuality, and ‘Die Stadt’ and ‘Meeresstrand’ are examples of the local colouring indispensable to his peculiar portrayal of Husum and the North Sea coastal region. ‘Oktoberlied’ is his most exuberant song; ‘Einer Toten’ expresses grief at Konstanze's death, as well as illustrating his recurring treatment of the transience of life in association with the permanently ticking pendulum of the clock. Storm sought to write poems born of the immediate moment and appealing to the senses by their musical quality, sound, and rhythm, and the unobtrusive employment of imagery. His theories grew out of what he recognized as the key to Goethe's intimate poetry. In his choice of images he confined himself to his personal and local heritage and environment, to which both his lyric poetry and his narrative work owe their plain but sincere authenticity. He was an admirer of H. Heine, matching Heine's irony with his own brand of humour, which was to him a necessary antidote to the frailty of existence.

Particularly fruitful for his narrative work was his correspondence with G. Keller and P. Heyse. Periodicals such as Westermanns Monatshefte and the Deutsche Rundschau ensured the quick circulation of his stories. The Novellen of his age (see Poetischer Realismus) became almost a substitute for drama; Storm explicitly recognized this when calling the Novelle the sister of drama, since it presented human conflict in disciplined and closed form (1881). In Storm's historical Novellen (Chroniknovellen) Aquis submersus (1876), Renate (1878), Eekenhof (1879), Zur Chronik von Grieshuus (1884), Ein Fest auf Haders-levhuus (1885), the dramatic intensification is often motivated by inexplicable extraneous occurrences, rather than by a conflict within the characters themselves. Paul Heyse was one of the first to recognize the advantage of Storm's chronicle and framework technique for a narrative demanding shifting perspectives. In Pole Poppenspäler (1874), Carsten Curator (1878), Hans und Heinz Kirch (1882), Bötjer Basch (1886), Ein Doppelgänger (1887), Storm penetrates a seemingly secure narrow burgher (Kleinbürger) world to reveal human dependence on environment and heredity, for which he found little scope in patrician and professional family circles, in which he portrayed the delicacy of human relationships with humour ( Die Söhne des Senators, 1880) and melancholy ( Viola tricolor, 1874). In one of his last Novellen, Ein Bekenntnis (1887), he grapples with the problem of euthanasia. The warmth of his humanity for those who stand apart shows likewise consistently in his treatment of themes relating to the artist, as in Eine Malerarbeit (1867) and Ein stiller Musikant (1875). The undercurrents of an age of change are caught in Auf dem Staats-hof (1859), Im Schloß (1862), and Auf der Universität (1863). In all Storm wrote more than 50 Novellen. None is constructed on the expansive scale adopted for the portrayal of the tragedy of the Deichgraf Hauke Haien in Der Schimmelreiter (1888). Storm's work, especially in his later years, anticipates in some degree the Naturalistic manner (see Naturalismus).

Gesammelte Schriften (19 vols.) appeared 1868-89; Sämtliche Werke (8 vols.) in 1898; (14 vols.), ed. A. Biese, 1919; (8 vols.), ed. K. M. Schiller, 1926 (reissued 1968); a critical edition by A. Köster, 1919-20 (8 vols., reissued 1939); by P. Goldammer, 1967 (rev. edn., 6th edn. 1986, 4 vols.); by K. E. Laage and D. Lohmeier, 1987-8 (4 vols.); and correspondence (4 vols.), ed. Gertrud Storm, 1915-17, and (2 vols.) ed. P. Goldammer, 1984 (2nd edn.). Other editions include Storm's correspondence with H. W. Seidel (see Seidel, H.), 1911, with E. Mörike, ed. H. W. Rath, 1919, with G. Keller, ed. A. Köster, 1904 (ed. P. Goldammer, 1960), with P. Heyse (3 vols.), ed. C. A. Bernd, 1969-74, with Th. Mommsen, ed. H.-E. Teitge, 1966, with E. Schmidt, ed. K.-E. Laage, 1972, with Fontane, ed. J. Steiner, 1981, with Klaus Groth, ed. B. Hinrichs, 1991.

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Theodor Storm
Theodor Storm (1886)
Born	14 September, 1817 (1817-09-14) Husum, Schleswig-Holstein
Died	4 July, 1888 (1888-07-05) Hademarschen, German Empire

Hans Theodor Woldsen Storm (14 September 1817 in Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, then Danish, today in Germany – 4 July 1888 in Hademarschen, Germany) was a German writer.

He was born in Husum (die graue Stadt am grauen Meer, "the grey town by the grey sea") on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein of well-to-do parents. While still a student of law, he published a first volume of verse together with the brothers Tycho and Theodor Mommsen.

He worked as a lawyer in Schleswig-Holstein, but emigrated to Thuringia in 1851 after the commencement of Danish rule, leaving his mother's household, and did not return until 1864, after Schleswig-Holstein had returned to Germany.

He wrote a number of stories, poems and novellas. His two most well-known works are the novellas Immensee ("Bees' Lake", 1849) [1] and Der Schimmelreiter ("The Rider on the White Horse"), first published in April 1888 in the Deutsche Rundschau. Other published works include a volume of his poems (1852), the novella Pole Poppenspäler (1874) and the novella Aquis submersus (1877).

Analysis

Theodor Storm, like Friedrich Hebbel, is a child of the North Sea Plain, but while in Hebbel's verse there is hardly any direct reference to his native landscape, Storm again and again sings its chaste beauty — and while Hebbel could find a home away from his native heath, Storm clung to it with a jealous love.

His favorite poets were Joseph von Eichendorff and Eduard Mörike, and the influence of the former is plainly discernible even in Storm's later verse. During a summer visit to Baden-Baden in 1864, where he had been invited by his friend, the author and painter Ludwig Pietsch, he made the acquaintance of the great Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. They exchanged letters and sent each other copies of their works over a number of years.

Samples

House of Theodor Storm in Husum

Die Stadt	The town
Am grauen Strand, am grauen Meer Und seitab liegt die Stadt; Der Nebel drückt die Dächer schwer, Und durch die Stille braust das Meer Eintönig um die Stadt.	By the gray shore, by the gray sea —And close by lies the town— The fog rests heavy round the roofs And through the silence roars the sea Monotonously round the town.
Es rauscht kein Wald, es schlägt im Mai Kein Vogel ohn' Unterlaß; Die Wandergans mit hartem Schrei Nur fliegt in Herbstesnacht vorbei, Am Strande weht das Gras.	No forest murmurs, and no bird sings Unceasingly in May; The wand'ring goose with raucous cry On autumn nights just passes by, On the shoreline waves the grass.
Doch hängt mein ganzes Herz an dir, Du graue Stadt am Meer; Der Jugend Zauber für und für Ruht lächelnd doch auf dir, auf dir, Du graue Stadt am Meer.	Yet all my heart remains with you, O gray town by the sea; Youth's magic ever and a day Rests smiling still on you, on you, O gray town by the sea.

(Analysis and original text of the poem from A Book of German Lyrics, ed. Friedrich Bruns, which is available in Project Gutenberg at http://ibiblio.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05/8glyr10.txt.)

External links

• Theodor Storm and his world
• Biography and many works by Storm
• Works by Theodor Storm at Project Gutenberg
• Der Schimmelreiter (Audiobook in German)
• All poems of Theodor Storm

• Media related to Theodor Storm at Wikimedia Commons
•  "Storm, Theodor Woldsen". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

Persondata
NAME	Storm, Theodor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German novelist
DATE OF BIRTH	September 14, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH	Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
DATE OF DEATH	Hademarschen, Germany
PLACE OF DEATH	July 4, 1888

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