Charles Sealsfield

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Charles Sealsfield, portrayed by August Neumann after the only definitely authentic photograph by W. Rust, Solothurn (wood engraving, 1864) Signature Charles Sidons Sealsfield.JPG

Charles Sealsfield , actually Carl Anton Postl , (born March 3, 1793 in Poppitz near Znaim , † May 26, 1864 in Solothurn ) was an Austrian - American writer .

Live and act

Charles Sealsfield's Birthplace and Museum in Popice

Postl came from a South Moravian winemaking family. The firstborn came after the visit of the Jesuit high school in Znojmo in the Kreuzherren Order , where he rose to become Sekretariatsadjunkt, studied in Prague theology among others, Bernard Bolzano , and received the 1814 ordination .

1823 fled Postl for unexplained reasons - he was even via profile for - via Vienna and Stuttgart to the USA, where he built a new identity, first as Charles Sidon , then as Charles Sealsfield . He first lived as a Protestant clergyman in Kittanning in the US state of Pennsylvania and then in New Orleans . In 1826/27 he was back in Europe, especially in London , had his first publications appear and in vain offered the Austrian Chancellor Metternich his services as a secret agent .

Profile of Carl Postl
Memorial place near his home village Poppitz above the Thaya

During a further stay in the USA, he worked, among other things, in New York as an employee of the newspaper Courrier des Etats-Unis and had contact with Joseph Bonaparte . At the end of 1830 he returned to Europe, settled in Switzerland and achieved international success with several novels , initially published anonymously . A short trip to the USA in 1837 served as a legal safeguard for his American identity; a stay in the USA from 1853 to 1858 earned him US citizenship .

In 1858, at the suggestion of a Swiss friend, the Basel politician Stephan Gutzwiller , he bought a house in Solothurn, which he lived in until his death and which today bears a plaque (Bergstrasse 49). In June 1860, Karl Maria Kertbeny applied as private secretary. Sealsfield turned down this offer. In 1864 he succumbed to cancer ; for his tomb in the Feldbrunnen -St. Niklaus he himself determined the inscription "Charles Sealsfield, citizen of North America". He had not published anything since 1843 and was largely forgotten; however, the opening of his will and the revelation of his previous identity caused a sensation and led to intensive biographical research.

In addition to short prose stories in various English and American magazines, some of which cannot be clearly attributed to him to this day, he published two travel reports in particular. 1827 appeared under the pseudonym Charles Sidons The United States of North America, viewed according to its political, religious and social circumstances. With a trip through western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, the Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana areas ; a two-volume, revised English version was published in 1828 under the title The United States of North America as They Are in Their Political, Religious, and Social Relations and The Americans As They Are: Described in a Tour through the Valleys of the Mississippi .

This text already shows those features that are characteristic of Sealsfield's later novel. From the perspective of a citizen of the United States, education is being carried out about the American political system, a new, dynamic and future-oriented world is presented to antiquated Europe. The author's political ideology is strongly oriented towards the program of the American President Andrew Jackson and the ideas of the slave-holding plantation owners in the southern states.

A second travelogue appeared anonymously in London in 1828: Austria as it is, or sketches of continental courts, by an eye-witness, a critical account of the Metternich regime . The Austrian secret police tried in vain to track down the author. Postl did not admit his authorship until years later.

Finally, in 1829, Sealsfield's first novel, Tokeah, appeared; or the White Rose in Philadelphia. A hardly changed British version came in the same year under the title The Indian Chief; or, Tokeah and the White Rose. A Tale of the Indians and Whites in London. In this novel, the only one he wrote in English, Sealsfield is clearly influenced by James Fenimore Cooper , whose Last of the Mohicans was published in 1826.

His literary career began in 1833 with the translation and revision of his Tokeah . The novel was published anonymously under the title The Legitimate and the Republicans. A story from the last American-English war. The adventurous plot around the Battle of New Orleans , in the course of which the victorious American general and later President Andrew Jackson appears, is based on the model of the historical novel that Walter Scott had developed. In contrast to the romantic Indian story, which still dominates in the American version, the German version focuses on the political aspect: the functioning of the American republic is shown even under the adverse conditions of a war that threatened its existence. The bearers of this American republic are backwoodsmen, farmers and plantation owners; As in his later work, Sealsfield largely evades the urban sphere.

The novels published in the next few years are characterized by a somewhat complicated title - and the title was revised by Sealsfield for later editions. In 1834 he published two narrative texts under the title Transatlantische Reiseskizzen und Christophorus Bärenhäuter , the first of which was George Howard's Esq. Brautfahrt, he used images of life from the western hemisphere as the first volume of the novel pentalogy 1843–46 in his Complete Works . In 1835 he temporarily turned to another subject and published a historical novel on the Mexican War of Independence, The Virey and the Aristocrats.

In the same year he began the life pictures from both hemispheres with the unfinished two-part novel The Great Tour , which he published independently in 1844 as Morton or the Great Tour . Since the other volumes of images of life from both hemispheres were limited to the USA, and therefore only dealt with one of the two hemispheres, he later assembled them, as mentioned, under the title Images of Life from the Western Hemisphere. These are the volumes Ralph Doughby's Esq. Brautfahrt or Der transatlantischen Reiseskizzen third part (1835), Pflanzerleben or Der transatlantischen Reiseskizzen fourth part (1836), Die Farbigen or Der transatlantischen Reiseskizzen fifth part (1836) and Nathan, the squatter regulator, or the first American in Texas. The sixth part of the transatlantic travel sketches (1837).

The three mentioned novels are loosely linked by the appearance or the mention of a few common characters. The Virey combines an adventurous private story that does not shy away from melodramatic effects, an impressive depiction of the warlike events in connection with the Mexican declaration of independence and a complex plot of intrigue about the Spanish viceroy ruling Mexico and a fictional Mexican aristocrat. The focus is on the narrator's claim to inform readers about the secret background of the Mexican events and to formulate a clear political message, according to which the religious, mental and social conditions in Mexico do not permit a republic as in the USA, but only a benevolent aristocratic dictatorship - a judgment that Sealsfield in Austria as it is had also passed on the state of the Habsburgs.

Morton also claims to allow the reader a glimpse behind the scenes of world politics , at the center of which is a young American who, after losing his fortune, throws himself into the arms of international finance capital and as an American banker's envoy to Europe goes, where he helps prepare the French July Revolution of 1830 . The novel, which goes back to the secret society theme, contrasts the virtuous United States with a virtuous Europe, but sees the foundations of the republic already being undermined in the United States by the influence of the (European) money economy. Sealsfield never finished the book and failed to provide the promised explanation of the causes of the July Revolution.

Sealsfield's grave in Feldbrunnen-St. Niklaus near Solothurn

In the five-volume Life Pictures from the Western Hemisphere , Sealsfield provided the portrait of his ideal social order - the southern state plantation society, which, based on slavery, enables a patriarchal republican system. A first-person narrator, the young plantation owner George Howard from the east, gives the floor to other first-person narrators over long passages and creates a broad panorama that shows his own initiation into the agricultural world and his probation in the face of dangerous events (a slave revolt and a tropical storm) as well as the early history of the plantation society - the settlement of Louisiana by French and American immigrants and the civilization of the wilderness. Research has repeatedly pointed to the contradictions in Sealsfield's idealizing picture: to the clear racism, the misogynistic and anti-sensual basis, the authoritarian character of this republic of plantation owners and the fear of change due to advancing economic development.

1839-40 followed the extensive, unfinished novel Neue Land- und Seebilder: The German-American Elective Affinities. Here the fate of a New York family is drawn, whose members partly remain committed to the traditional - and increasingly outdated - agricultural way of life, while another branch surrenders to the social life of the big city. The satirical portrait of the American East Coast society is connected with the “Atlantic theme” through the trip of a young Prussian nobleman to the USA, who gets to know a less attractive New York. The apparently intended goal - weddings between the American and German protagonists - is not achieved because Sealsfield broke off the novel.

In 1841 Sealsfield turned back to the American West with his subsequent most famous work, The Cabin Book or National Characteristics . At the center of the complex text - a listening group of wealthy plantation owners from Natchez, Mississippi, several stories are told - are the Texas Revolution and the South American War of Independence. In particular, the first of the internal narratives, The Prairie on Jacinto , consolidated Sealsfield's fame and was repeatedly edited as a single text - mostly shortened by the political-didactic component that can also be found here.

The last novel to be published was South and North in 1842/43 , a fantastic story that takes a group of young Americans into the Mexican wilderness and into a web of intriguing intrigues. Ideas of paradise and hell, hallucinations and dreams structure this journey into the heart of darkness, which anticipates the theme of many later colonial novels.

1843–46, Sealsfield brought out a collection of his novels at Metzler in Stuttgart, Complete Works in 18 Volumes, but did not publish any new texts until his death. At first his novels were published anonymously, which led to speculation in contemporary critics about the identity of this new "Great Unknown" (the first "Great Unknown" was Walter Scott); for copyright reasons he later confessed to the authorship as Charles Sealsfield. In the 1830s, Sealsfield's novels attracted considerable attention; They were particularly celebrated by the Young German critics. In the 1840s he temporarily achieved a certain prominence in the USA. Most of his novels were translated - without authorization - and debates about the mysterious European author took place in the American press. Prominent writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were critical. In 1848, however, Sealsfield's work disappeared from the literary public.

Only after his death did he get a lot of interest again, although this was primarily about his biography. His novels, which faithfully reflect the confused political discourse of that time and repeatedly refer to multi-ethnic aspects and ethnic psychological thought patterns, have only received more attention from literary scholars since the 1970s. Sealsfield himself took credit for having created a new type of novel with his texts, the “higher folk novel” and for contributing to the enlightenment and “formation of the age” with his novels. But the texts are much more complex than the author's formulated intention would suggest, and a plausible assessment of Sealsfield's literary achievement is still pending.

A rich collection of manuscripts and first editions of his works, the "Kresse Collection", is kept in the Solothurn Central Library.

Works

Works published during his lifetime:

  • The United States of America, viewed according to its political, religious and social conditions. With a trip through western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, the Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana areas. 2 volumes Stuttgart a. Tübingen: Cotta 1827. Revised English version of volume 1: The United States of North America as They Are in Their Political, Religious, and Social Relations. London: Simpkin & Marshall 1828. Revised English version of volume 2: The Americans As They Are: Described in a Tour through the Valleys of the Mississippi. London: Hurst, Chance 1828.
  • Austria as it is, or sketches of continental courts, by an eye-witness. London: Hurst, Chance 1828.
  • L'Autriche telle qu'elle est, ou chronique secrète de certaines cours d'allemagne par un témoin oculaire. Paris: Bossange 1828.
  • Tokeah; or the White Rose. 2 volumes Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey 1829. Revised version: The Indian Chief; or, Tokeah and the White Rose. A Tale of the Indians and Whites. 3 volumes Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey 1829; London: Newman 1829.
  • The Legitimate and the Republicans. A story from the last American-English war. 3 volumes Zurich: Orell, Füßli 1833. online
  • Transatlantic travel sketches and Christophorus bear skins. 2 volumes Zurich: Orell, Füßli 1834. online
  • The Virey and the Aristocrats or Mexico in 1812. 3 volumes Zurich: Orell, Füßli 1835. online
  • Life pictures from both hemispheres: The big tour. 2 volumes Zurich: Orell, Füßli 1835.
  • Pictures of life from both hemispheres, third part: Ralph Doughby's Esq. Bridal trip or The transatlantic travel sketches third part Zurich: Orell, Füßli 1835.
  • Life pictures from both hemispheres, fourth part: Planter's life or The transatlantic travel sketches, fourth part. Zurich: Schultheß 1836.
  • Life pictures from both hemispheres, fifth part The Colored or The transatlantic travel sketches fifth part Zurich: Schultheß 1836.
  • Life pictures from both hemispheres, sixth part and Nathan, the squatter regulator, or the first American in Texas. The sixth part of the transatlantic travel sketch, Zurich: Schultheß 1836.
  • New Land and Sea Pictures: The German-American Elective Affinities. 4 volumes Zurich: Schultheß 1839/40.
  • The cabin book or national characteristics . 2 volumes Zurich: Schultheß 1841.
  • South and north. 3 volumes Stuttgart: Metzler 1842/43. online Vol.1 , Vol.2 , Vol.3
  • Collected Works. 18 volumes Stuttgart: Metzler 1843–46.

Selection of later editions:

  • The Bloody Log House: Roman . Ed. V. Rudolf Beissel u. Roland Schmid. Karl-May-Verlag, Bamberg 1965.
  • The Grave Guilt: Lagged Narrative . Ed. V. Alfred Meissner. Günther, Leipzig 1873.
  • All works . Ed. V. Karl JR Arndt among others 33 volumes planned. Olms, Hildesheim 1972ff.
  • The cabin book or national characteristics . Ed. V. Alexander Knight. Insel, Frankfurt 1989
  • AUSTRIA AS IT IS: or Sketches of continental courts, by an eye-witness . London 1828. AUSTRIA AS IT IS or sketches of the royal courts of the continent. Vienna 1919. An annotated text edition. Ed. V. Primus-Heinz Kucher. Böhlau, Cologne 1994.
  • Austria as it is or: sketches of royal courts on the continent. From an eyewitness . London 1828. Read edition. Edited, edited, translated a. provided with an afterword v. Primus-Heinz Kucher. Böhlau, Cologne 1997.
  • Ralph Doughby's Esq. Bridal trip , edited and introduced by Rolf Vollmann . With an essay by WG Sebald , Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn 2006, Die Andere Bibliothek series , ISBN 978-3-8218-4576-0 .

literature

  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Sealsfield, Charles . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 33. Part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1877, pp. 228–240 ( digitized version ).
  • Franz Brümmer :  Sealsfield, Charles . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 33, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1891, pp. 499-502.
  • Eduard Castle: The great stranger. The life of Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postl) . Manutius, Vienna 1952.
  • Helmut Zimpel: Karl Postl's (Charles Sealsfields) novels in the context of their time. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 1973. (= Frankfurt sources and research on Germanic and Romance philology; 29)
  • Hubert Fritz: The narrative in the novels Charles Sealsfields and Jeremias Gotthelfs. On the rhetoric tradition in Biedermeier . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1976. (European University Theses; Series 1; 151)
  • Thomas Ostwald: Charles Sealsfield, life and work. Biography based on contemporary press reports, supplemented by book excerpts from literary stories . Graff, Braunschweig 1976, ISBN 3-87273-021-5 .
  • Franz Schueppen: Charles Sealsfield, Karl Postl. An Austrian narrator from the Biedermeier period between the old and the new world . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1981 (= European University Papers; Series 1; 428), ISBN 3-8204-6223-6 .
  • Andreas Peter: Charles Sealsfield's Mexico novels. On the spatiotemporal structuring and meaning of the travel motive. Stuttgart 1983. (= annual gift of the Charles Sealsfield Society in Stuttgart)
  • Beate Jahnel: Charles Sealsfield and the fine arts. The landscapes in Charles Sealsfield's novels and their parallels in 19th century American and English painting . Sealsfield Society, Stuttgart 1985.
  • Walter Grünzweig: The Democratic Canaan. Charles Sealsfield's America in the Context of American Literature and Ideology. Fink, Munich 1987 (= series of publications of the Charles Sealsfield Society; 2), ISBN 3-7705-2421-7 .
  • Günter Schnitzler: Experience and image. The poetic reality of Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postl) . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988 (= series of publications of the Charles Sealsfield Society; 3), ISBN 3-7930-9047-7 .
  • WG Sebald : Views from the New World. About Charles Sealsfield. In: Eerie Heimat. Essays on Austrian literature. Residence, Salzburg / Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7017-0694-8 .
  • Charlotte L. Brancaforte (Ed.): The Life and Works of Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postl) 1793-1864 . Max Kade Institute, Madison, Wisconsin 1993.
  • Franz B. Schüppen (Ed.): New Sealsfield studies. America and Europe in the Biedermeier period. Intercultural Realities in the Work of Charles Sealsfield (1793–1864). Marbacher Symposion, November 1993 M and P, Verlag für Wiss. und research, Stuttgart 1995 (= series of publications of the Charles Sealsfield Society; 7), ISBN 3-476-45062-7 .
  • Joseph P. Strelka (Ed.): Between Louisiana and Solothurn. On the work of the Austrian-American Charles Sealsfield. Lang, Bern et al. 1997 (= New Yorker contributions to Austrian literary history; 6), ISBN 3-906756-93-9 .
  • Gustav-Adolf Pogatschnigg: Charles Sealsfield. Political narrator between Europe and America. International Research Perspectives. Bergamo Symposium, October 1994 . Charles-Sealsfield-Ges., Munich 1998 (= series of the Charles-Sealsfield-Gesellschaft; 9), ISBN 3-926458-04-6 .
  • Lars-Peter Linke: Journey, Adventure and Mystery. To the novels of Charles Sealsfield . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 3-89528-263-4 .
  • Egon Renner, Boris Kruse: Charles Sealsfield and his Indian novel. In: Magazine for American Studies 2/2002 - 4/2002. Publisher for American Studies, Wyk aF 2002.
  • Alexander Ritter (Ed.): Charles Sealsfield. Perspectives on Recent Research . Edition Praesens, Vienna 2004.
  • Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson: Of monkeys, forest men and changeling: Colonial stereotypes at Sealsfield and their cultural studies context. In: Günter Schnitzler, Waldemar Fromm (Hrsg.): Yearbook of the Charles Sealsfield Society. Volume XVI / 2004. Rombach, Freiburg i. B. 2004, pp. 129-170.
  • Ernst Grabovszki: Between the habit and mask. The mysterious life of Charles Sealsfield . Styria, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-222-13164-3 .
  • Alexander Ritter (Ed.): Charles Sealsfield in exile in Switzerland 1831–1864. Republican hideaway and international literary career . Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-7069-0512-1 .
  • Gottfried Riedl : Carl Postl - Charles Sealsfield: I can't wear the shackles any longer ... Edition Kappenberg, 2008, ISBN 978-3-200-01197-7 .
  • Wynfrid Kriegleder:  Sealsfield, Charles. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 103-105 ( digitized version ).
  • Heinrich Amman : The great stranger. Charles Sealsfield and his stay in Thurgau. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , Vol. 40, 1965, pp. 29–45. ( e-periodica.ch )

Web links

Wikisource: Charles Sealsfield  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Charles Sealsfield  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the last name of the pseudonym Postl has translated a field name from near his hometown into English: "For instance, his newly chosen last name, Sealsfield, is a one-to-one translation of Siegelfeld, a vineyard area close to Poppitz, where the Postls owned estate. "(Dagmar Wernitznig: Europe's Indians, Indians in Europe. European Perceptions and Appropriations of Native American Cultures from Pocahontas to the Present. University Press of America: Lanham - Boulder - New York - Toronto - Plymouth, UK. 2007 , P. 40. ISBN 978-0-7618-3689-6 .)
  2. ↑ frequent editions in various publishers, by various editors, with or without comments on passages in need of explanation and afterwords. E.g. Reclam's Universal Library , 1982 a. ö .: Comments on the text form; Comment; Appendix with explanations of persons, facts and words, timetable for the historical Background, time table and documents on the author and his work, documents on the history of impact, epilogue on the history of the edition, reception, subject matter and literary concerns. Overview of editions and their reviews
personal data
SURNAME Sealsfield, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Postl, Carl Anton (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH Poppitz near Znaim , South Moravia
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1864
Place of death Solothurn