Gustav Freytag(1816-1895)
- Writer
Freytag studied German in Breslau from 1835, and a year later he moved to the University of Berlin. In 1838 he received his doctorate from the classical philologist Karl Lachmann. phil. He began successful attempts at poetry while still a student. The following year, in 1839, he completed his habilitation with his work on the medieval poet Hrotsvit von Gandersheim. He then worked as a private lecturer in German language and literature in Breslau until 1844. The only twenty-three-year-old came to this position through his good relationship with his teacher, the poet and literary historian A. H. Hoffmann, better known as Hoffmann von Fallersleben. He resigned from this post due to professional differences. Gustav Freytag became a professional journalist and writer. Together with the literary historian Julian Schmidt, Freytag edited the national liberal magazine "Die Grenzboten" from 1848 onwards. In addition to political education, the literary program of the realistic representation principle was also pursued. He carried out this journalistic activity until 1870.
The liberal-minded Gustav Freytag often addressed the social problems of his time. Among other things, he was a co-founder of a charitable association for needy weavers. In 1854 he was appointed court councilor by Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In the period from 1867 to 1870 he was a member of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation for the National Liberals. He experienced the war of 1870/1871 as a journalist. In 1881 he moved to Wiesbaden. Freytag's view of poetry was linked to the quality of the popular, which is evident, for example, in the volume of poems "In Breslau" (1845) and in his close association with Berthold Auerbach, a writer of village stories. As a playwright, Gustav Freytag celebrated his first success in 1844 with the comedy "The Bride's Journey, or Kunz von der Rosen", which received an award from the Royal Theater in Berlin. Other comedies followed, such as "The Journalists", which premiered in 1852 and gave him his greatest theatrical success. The piece refers to contemporary politics and tells of the connection between private and public conflict situations.
Freytag was appointed to the Schiller Prize Commission in Berlin. In the tragedy "The Fabians" (1959) he realized his own dramatic technique, which he later, in 1863, wrote down in the work "Technology of Drama". The author's conception of drama is based on the ancient and classical movement. In his novels he romanticized the bourgeois society of his time. The title "Debit and Credit" is his best-known narrative work, which is about the world of merchants, but in a deeper sense contains a social snapshot of the Wilhelminian era. The action of the scholarly novel "The Lost Handwriting" takes place in the educated middle class. Based on a family history in the six-volume novel series "The Ancestors", the chronological sequence of the German people from the Teutons to Freytag's present is traced. The work was published after the second German empire, which Freytag welcomed. To do this, he used his own five-volume cultural-historical work "Images from the German Past" (1859-1867) as a template.
Above all, Freytag made a name for himself as a popular author of contemporary German civil society with the successful novels "Debit and Credit", "The Lost Handwriting" and "The Ancestors", in which he carried out a literary transfiguration in a realistic style. His other works include "De initiis scenicae poesis apud Germanos" (1838), "Die Valentine" (1847), "Karl Mathy. Story of his life" (1869) and "Collected Works" (1886-1888).
Gustav Freytag died on April 30, 1895 in Wiesbaden.
The liberal-minded Gustav Freytag often addressed the social problems of his time. Among other things, he was a co-founder of a charitable association for needy weavers. In 1854 he was appointed court councilor by Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In the period from 1867 to 1870 he was a member of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation for the National Liberals. He experienced the war of 1870/1871 as a journalist. In 1881 he moved to Wiesbaden. Freytag's view of poetry was linked to the quality of the popular, which is evident, for example, in the volume of poems "In Breslau" (1845) and in his close association with Berthold Auerbach, a writer of village stories. As a playwright, Gustav Freytag celebrated his first success in 1844 with the comedy "The Bride's Journey, or Kunz von der Rosen", which received an award from the Royal Theater in Berlin. Other comedies followed, such as "The Journalists", which premiered in 1852 and gave him his greatest theatrical success. The piece refers to contemporary politics and tells of the connection between private and public conflict situations.
Freytag was appointed to the Schiller Prize Commission in Berlin. In the tragedy "The Fabians" (1959) he realized his own dramatic technique, which he later, in 1863, wrote down in the work "Technology of Drama". The author's conception of drama is based on the ancient and classical movement. In his novels he romanticized the bourgeois society of his time. The title "Debit and Credit" is his best-known narrative work, which is about the world of merchants, but in a deeper sense contains a social snapshot of the Wilhelminian era. The action of the scholarly novel "The Lost Handwriting" takes place in the educated middle class. Based on a family history in the six-volume novel series "The Ancestors", the chronological sequence of the German people from the Teutons to Freytag's present is traced. The work was published after the second German empire, which Freytag welcomed. To do this, he used his own five-volume cultural-historical work "Images from the German Past" (1859-1867) as a template.
Above all, Freytag made a name for himself as a popular author of contemporary German civil society with the successful novels "Debit and Credit", "The Lost Handwriting" and "The Ancestors", in which he carried out a literary transfiguration in a realistic style. His other works include "De initiis scenicae poesis apud Germanos" (1838), "Die Valentine" (1847), "Karl Mathy. Story of his life" (1869) and "Collected Works" (1886-1888).
Gustav Freytag died on April 30, 1895 in Wiesbaden.