Aloys Blumauer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aloys Blumauer; anonymous engraving.

Aloys Blumauer , occasionally. Alois Blumauer or Johannes Aloisius Blumauer , (* December 21 or 22, 1755 in Steyr ; †  March 16, 1798 in Vienna ) was an Austrian writer during the Enlightenment . His pseudonyms were A. Auer and Aloys Obermayer .

Life

School and study

The House of birth

Blumauer was the son of Gschmeidler (small hardware dealer) Melchior Friedrich Blumauer and his wife Katharina. The family lived in Steyr at Engen Gasse No. 2 , where the father also ran his business. A memorial plaque in honor of Aloys Blumauer has been attached to this property since 1863.

Memorial plaque on the facade of Engen Gasse

After completing primary school, Blumauer switched to the local Jesuit high school . At the age of 17, Blumauer successfully graduated from high school and, at the request of his parents, should now embark on a church career. In the late summer of 1772 he therefore went to Vienna and entered the Societas Iesu as a novice . Just one year later, Pope Clement XIV ordered the Jesuit ban with the bull Dominus ac redemptor noster . With effect from August 16, 1773, Blumauer was on the street with no employment or income. Since it was impossible for him to find accommodation in a monastery of another order, he began to study philosophy at the University of Vienna .

Head of House - Editor - Censor - Writer

During his studies, Blumauer made the acquaintance of Joseph von Sonnenfels , who also gave him various positions as a private tutor. It is still uncertain whether Blumauer graduated. Blumauer made his debut as a writer as a student and was compared to Karl Mastalier and Michael Denis by critics . According to his own statements, Blumauer initially tried more to imitate Gottfried August Bürger in his poetry than to outdo Mastalier, Denis or others. The director of the court library, Baron Gottfried van Swieten , became aware of him and in 1780 got Blumauer a job in the magazines of the court library.

Journal sheet with silhouette

Blumauer's friend Sonnenfels introduced him to the writer Joseph Franz von Ratschky , with whom Blumauer published the Viennese muse almanac from 1781 to 1794 . With this almanac, which Ratschky founded in 1777, the tradition of the Parisian Almancs des muses was continued in Vienna.

When his patron van Swieten reformed the censorship commission on the orders of Emperor Joseph II in 1782 , he appointed Blumauer to the kk books censor ; he remained in this position until 1793. Since this authority worked only very half-heartedly, Blumauer had enough time for his own literary work.

This topic has been in vogue since Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen and so Blumauer was able to stage his only drama Erwine von Steinheim at the Imperial and Royal National Theater in November 1780 . The premiere was a great success and was enthusiastically celebrated by the official critics as well as the audience. The style of the piece is definitely reminiscent of that of Sturm und Drang , although Blumauer had always denied this because he was not a fan of this direction.

Freemasons

In 1781 Blumauer became a Freemason . The Enlightenment member joined the Viennese lodge Zur True Eintracht , which was founded in the same year and was headed by Ignaz von Born as master of the chair from 1782 . Blumauer's lodge brothers included his fellow writers Johann Baptist von Alxinger , Tobias Gebler , Gottlieb Leon (1757–1830), Joseph Franz von Ratschky, Joseph von Retzer (1754–1824) and Joseph von Sonnenfels; all belonging to the Illuminati order , as well as Blumauer himself under the name of the order 'Hermionius', whereby the time of his membership is unknown.

Editor - poet - playwright

Title page of Volume 1 of the first edition
Title page of Volume 2 of the first edition
Title page of Volume 3 of the first edition

Between 1782 and 1784 Blumauer was the editor-in-chief of the Wiener Realzeitung , in which enlightening , almost revolutionary ideas were published. This time was also his most creative; Among other things, his work Virgils Aeneid, travested , was created there, which is still read today . In the same year he also published his first volume of poetry, which was also very successful and had several editions. Blumauer's Aeneid was read enthusiastically and translated into many European languages. It is precisely in this work that one notices Blumauer's great role models in the field of parody and travesty . Le Virgile travesty en vers burlesques ( Paul Scarron ), Pucelle d'Orleans ( Voltaire ) and also Rape of locks ( Alexander Pope ) should be mentioned here.

Between 1784 and 1786, Blumauer was in charge of the journal of his lodge Zur Wahr Eintracht . As a result of this activity, from 1787 to 1789 he was repeatedly assigned to act as editor of the weekly newspaper Die Schwarze Zeitung . In 1786 he had also joined the Lodge Zur Truth and became editor of the Vienna Journal for Freemasons .

In line with the reforms of the enlightened monarch, Emperor Josef II, Blumauer opposed the secular power of the church in his Aeneid and called for its renewal. Many anachronisms and allusions to Austrian conditions at the time can be found in the work. Goethe is said to have expressed himself very disparagingly about Blumauer's Aeneid , but only after his death , which may also be due to the fact that Blumauer messed with Goethe insofar as he had his Werther brought before the judges in hell, who then brought him to the devil to hand over:

D'rauf became the triumvirate
Mr. Werther demonstrated,
And the hellish Senate
Very keenly examined;
The gentlemen voted on it, and there
Was he at unanimia
Surrender to the devil.

In contrast to other poets of this time, who sang the high and the noble in their poems and ballads, Blumauer's poems have more prosaic titles, such as ode to the chair , to the stomach , to boredom , praise of the flea and much more.

On the occasion of his stay in Vienna, Pope Pius VI blessed . the crowd in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral . Blumauer did not take off his hat and justified himself with the bon mot "If the blessing is good, it goes through the hat."

Mozart and Blumauer

Blumauer had several points of contact with his contemporary Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . For some time Mozart taught the wife of the court printer and publisher Thomas von Trattner and Blumauer denounced Trattner in his writings (especially his "Aeneas") as a pirate printer , which he was.

Blumauer and Mozart probably met each other at Thomas von Trattner's. According to the current state of research (2007), their collaboration was limited to Das Lied der Freiheit , in which Blumauer contributed the text and Mozart the melody.

Illness - Travel - Bookseller

In 1785, Blumauer's great love Mimi, Ignaz von Born's daughter , married not him, but an Italian nobleman. In the same year, Emperor Joseph II issued the hand-held ticket, which obliged the Masonic guilds to register. As a result, he fell ill with severe dropsy and was near death. He survived only thanks to the help of two doctors who were friends. From this point in time he began to give up and withdraw from all offices and functions, and his will to fight politically died out.

Two years later, somewhat recovered, Blumauer took a trip to Berlin and Weimar to visit Christoph Martin Wieland and Friedrich Justin Bertuch . He adored both of them very much and wanted to get to know them personally. One can assume that Wieland also appreciated Blumauer, as he - according to his own statements - was happy to see him again next year.

The death of Emperor Joseph II brought changes in many ways. In 1793 Blumauer left the civil service and took over the Graeffer bookstore, in which he had been involved since 1787. From this time on he published almost only bibliographies and book directories; his heyday of parodies was over. He went bankrupt with his bookstore as well as the affiliated publisher. Since there was no legal protection of the intellectual property at that time, he lost the royalties due for reprints.

When, under Emperor Franz II., The persecution of the Enlightenment , denounced as Viennese Jacobins , began in 1794 , Blumauer was arrested and interrogated at short notice. In July 1794, around 30 people, all of them former colleagues, lodge brothers or friends of Blumauer, were arrested in Vienna for alleged revolutionary conspiracies against the emperor. In contrast to many of his friends, however, Blumauer was released due to a lack of (mostly fictitious) evidence. Others were sentenced to long prison terms (like Andreas Riedel ) or (like Franz Hebenstreit ) to death.

Aloys Blumauer died on March 16, 1798 in Vienna of pulmonary consumption at the age of 42 . He found his final resting place in the St. Marx cemetery.

Posthumous honors

On December 21, 1863, the Steyr men's choir "Kränzchen" put a plaque on the house where he was born. In 1874 the Blumauergasse in Vienna- Leopoldstadt (2nd district) was named after him and in 1880 the Blumauergasse in Steyr.

effect

In 1869, the literary historian Friedrich Wilhelm Ebeling praised Blumauer and his Aeneis travesty in his history of comic literature and described it as one of the best texts in Germany's comic literature. Almost 130 years later Klaus Dürrschmid wrote in 1997 in the journal Literatur und Critique : “… Aloys Blumauer can certainly be described as one of Austria's most important writers at the end of the 18th century. We can definitely agree with Franz Grillparzer , who in his youth was a great friend and also imitator of the works of Aloys Blumauer: 'This man's work is perhaps the best that has ever blossomed in the field of parody ' ... "

In its fourth edition (1888–1890), Meyers Konversations-Lexikon pays tribute to Blumauer's work in a nutshell: “His travesty of Virgil's Äneide: Adventure of the pious hero Aeneas (Vienna 1784, often published; with notes and introduction, edited by von Grisebach, was once very popular) Leipz. 1872), whose comic power lies in the contrast between modern relationships and those of antiquity and in the sharp satire against the excesses of modern education. The same burlesque humor, which does not shy away from raw and clumsy humor, which characterizes this work, also runs as the main feature of the other lyrical and narrative poems by Blumauer, which, however, often degenerate into triviality; only a few are serious and dignified. "

Blumauer's impact was evidently stronger in Hungarian literature. His popularity with Mihály Csokonai Vitéz and other contemporaries was so great that they were subject to his influence. János Arany is still looking for prime examples in Blumauer's texts. Source: Domokos Mátyás: Klasszikus német költők; Europe. (Bp., 1977)

Works

  • Masonic poems . Vienna 1786

Work editions

Aloys Blumauer's collected works. 3 volumes, Scheible, Stuttgart 1839

Monographs

  • Observations on Austria's Enlightenment and literature , Geyer, Vienna 1970
  • Catalog raissonné des livres rares et prétieux qui se trouvent chez Blumauer , self-published, Vienna 1797
  • Praise the flea. Selected poems , edited by Michael Serrer, Edition XIM Virgines, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-934268-12-9
  • Virgils Aeneis, travested , Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7069-0347-4

Magazines

  • Wienerischer Musenalmanach , Gräffer, Vienna 1775–1785
  • Wiener Musen-Almanach , Blumauer, Vienna 1786–1796, [1797 not published], 1802–1803
  • New Vienna Muses Almanac , Schaumburger, Vienna 1798, [1799 not published], 1800–1801

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Aloys Blumauer  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Aloys Blumauer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hermann Goldbacher: Monuments, memorial plaques, inscriptions in: Tausend Jahre Steyr. Festschrift on the occasion of the city anniversary, published by the association “Thousand Years of Steyr” . Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft Gutenberg, Linz 1980, p. 35
  2. ^ Jürgen Holtorf: The lodges of the Freemasons , Nikol Verlags GmbH, Hamburg ISBN 3-930656-58-2 p. 140
  3. ↑ The street names Steyr: B , accessed on April 8, 2019 (Steyrer Blumauergasse)
  4. ↑ JL Schmidmer (1779-1831): Directory of the collection of books, oil paintings, copper engravings, water and enamel paintings, ... of the postmaster, who died in Nuremberg, Schustern which ..., p. 6, item 130.
  5. ↑ Peter Kraft , in: Web presence of Regiowiki.at
personal data
SURNAME Blumauer, Aloys
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blumauer, Alois
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 21, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Steyr
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1798
Place of death Vienna