Wilhelm Raabe

Raabe, Wilhelm (Eschershausen nr. Hildesheim, 1831-1910, Brunswick), German novelist of the second half of the 19th c., was the son of a civil servant, who was posted to Holzminden, where Raabe had his first schooling; in 1842 there was a further move to Stadtoldendorf. When the father died three years later, the widow settled in Wolfenbüttel, where Raabe completed an undistinguished school career. Leaving in 1849, he was apprenticed to a bookseller at Magdeburg, with whom he remained for four years, making full use of the opportunity to read voraciously. He abandoned his career in 1853, returned home for some months, and moved in 1854 to Berlin where he attended lectures at the university for four semesters. During this time he lived in the Spreegasse, now renamed Sperlingsgasse, because he there wrote his first novel, Die Chronik der Sperlingsgasse (1856), which appeared under the pseudonym Jakob Corvinus (Lat. corvus means Rabe, ‘crow’ or ‘raven’).

In 1856 Raabe returned to Wolfenbüttel, trying for six years, with little success, to make a living by his pen. To this period belong the novels Ein Frühling (1857), Der heilige Born (1861), and Unsers Herrgotts Kanzlei (1862), the long tale Nach dem großen Kriege (1861), and 3 vols. of shorter narratives, Halb Mär, halb mehr (1859), Die Kinder von Finkenrode (1859), and Verworrenes Leben (1862). Whilst writing these works Raabe decided to travel, but the war of Italian Independence, which broke out in May 1859, obliged him to alter plans for an Italian journey and he made instead an educational tour of Germany and Austria, visiting Leipzig, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna, passing through the Salzkammergut and the Alps, to Munich and Stuttgart, on to Heidelberg and Cologne, and so home. In 1862 Raabe married, settling in Stuttgart, where he remained until 1870. During these years he achieved his first full success with Der Hungerpastor (1864); and he continued his prolific activity with the novels Die Leute aus dem Walde (1863), Drei Federn (1865), Abu Telfan (1868), and Der Schüdderump (1870), and the collections of stories Ferne Stimmen (1865) and Der Regenbogen (1869), which contains the well-known tale Else von der Tanne and also Im Siegeskranze. It was long customary to regard this as Raabe's greatest period and to conceive the three novels Der Hungerpastor, Abu Telfan, and Der Schüdderump as a trilogy conveying a message of sombre pessimism.

In fact the phase of Raabe's greatest originality was about to begin. In 1870 he settled in Brunswick, the capital of his native land, and there he remained for the rest of his life, at first obscure and solitary, but gradually developing into a well-known figure. Raabe abandoned the long book in these years, specializing in closely wrought and intricate shorter novels and collections of stories. Der Dräumling (1872) was followed by the tales Deutscher Mondschein and the novel Christoph Pechlin. Eine Internationale Liebesgeschichte (both 1873). The great works set in with Horacker (1876), Wunnigel (1879), Alte Nester (1880), Das Horn von Wanza (1881), Prinzessin Fisch (1883), Villa Schönow, Pfisters Mühle (both 1884), Unruhige Gäste (1886), Im alten Eisen (1887), Das Odfeld (1889), Stopfkuchen (1891), Gutmanns Reisen (1892), Die Akten des Vogelsangs (1895), and Hastenbeck (1898). An unfinished novel, Altershausen, was published posthumously in 1912. Other later works are the novel Deutscher Adel (1880), a collection of stories, Krähenfelder Geschichten (1879), and the short novel Fabian und Sebastian (1882). Raabe's little-known poetry was collected in 1912 (posth.).

The whole of Raabe's work is impregnated with a sense of history, including an awareness of the present as a part of the historical process; and his immense reading and retentive memory enabled him to bestrew his books with literary allusions. His consciousness of the omnipresence of death and his sensitiveness to suffering are complemented by a rich and compassionate humanity, which manifests itself in all the later works, reaching its highest points perhaps in the portrayal of such figures as Horacker, Magister Buchius (Das Odfeld), die Wackerhahnsche (Hastenbeck), and, above all, Stopfkuchen.

Sämtliche Werke, historisch-kritische Ausgabe (24 vols., incl. supplementary vols.), ed. K. Hoppe et al., appeared in 1951 ff. and ‘In alls gedultig’. Briefe 1862-1910, ed. W. Fehse, in 1940.

Raabe, Wilhelm (vĭl'hĕlm rä'bə) , 1831–1910, German novelist, whose pseudonym was Jakob Corvinus. At 23 he began to write novels and tales of village life; the charming idyll Die Chronik der Sperlingsgasse (1857) first brought him acclaim. Raabe's humor often serves to cover a more bitter irony. He later turned to the historical past and wrote such tales as the tragic “Des Reiches Krone” [the imperial crown] (1870). His novels include Der Hungerpastor (1864, tr. 1885) and Abu Telfan (1867; tr. Abu Telfan's Return from the Mountains of the Moon, 1881).

Bibliography

See studies by B. Fairley (1961), and I. S. Di Maio (1981).

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