Christian Heinrich Spieß

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Christian Heinrich Spieß (born April 4, 1755 in Freiberg , † August 17, 1799 in Besdiekau near Klattau , South Bohemia) was a German actor, playwright and author of trivial literature . He is considered to be the co-founder of the horror novel .

life and work

Christian Heinrich Spieß was born as the son of a pastor and a pastor's daughter. He attended grammar school in Freiberg and studied in Prague , where he heard the "Lectures on German Writing" from Karl Heinrich Seibt . Then he became a member of the traveling actor society of Karl Wahr; his favorite role was that of old Moor in Schiller's robbers .

In 1783 he brought out a tragedy “Maria Stuart”. His knight drama "Klara von Hoheneichen" premiered in Prague in 1792; it was used as a model for knight drama and performed ten times by Goethe at the Weimar court theater.

At this point in time, Spieß had already accepted an offer from Count Caspar Hermann von Künigl and had become an economic clerk on his estate in Besdiekau in Bohemia, where his canon of duties gave him enough time and leisure to become one of the most productive novelists of his time. His " Petermännchen " has been translated into English and French and is said to have influenced Matthew Lewis , who traveled to Germany before writing his epic novel "The Monk". In the “Biographies of the Crazy” Spieß based himself on real biographies, linked them and expanded them with his own inventions, also in order to make prominent protagonists unrecognizable. The model for Friedrich, the lover of Ester L. in “The Story of Ester L.” could be identified as Heinrich Bogislaw Detlef Friedrich von Schwerin (after. ) With the help of memoirs (“ Histoire de ma vie ”) by Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) 1738 to around 1800), player and unwanted nephew of Kurt Christoph von Schwerin , the famous field marshal of Frederick II .

Spieß went to Besdiekau with his lover, the actress Sophie Körner (1750-1817). When Spieß's mother and his beloved Countess Künigl died within a short time, he fell into a frenzy in August 1799, but came to shortly before his death. After his death, Sophie Körner was married to the widowed Count Künigl.

Dramas

  • The three daughters. 1782
  • Maria Stuart. 1783
  • Klara von Hoheneichen. A knight play , 1792

prose

Adaptations of his works

stage
  • Karl Friedrich Hensler : The weever. A play with singing in four acts. 1st chapter. Vienna 1794 (Verlag Johann Baptist Wallishauser)
  • Karl Friedrich Hensler: The weever. A play with singing in four acts. Part 2. Vienna 1794 (Verlag Johann Baptist Wallishauser)
  • Josef Georg Schmalz : Rudolf von Westerburg or Das Pettermännchen. A ghost story (1838). Manuscript in the archive of the knight drama Kiefersfelden . (New copy by Martin Hainzl, Kiefersfelden 1989 / game version 2013 not published)
Movie

literature

  • Johann Wilhelm Appell: The knight, robber and horror romance. On the history of German entertainment literature. Leipzig, 1859, pp. 35–41 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Spit, Christian Heinrich . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 36th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1878, pp. 156–161 ( digitized version ).
  • Hermann Arthur Lier :  Spit, Christian Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 35, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, p. 177.
  • Wolfgang Promies : Epilogue to Christian Heinrich Spieß: The biographies of the insane. Darmstadt and Neuwied: Luchterhand 1966 and 1976, ISBN 3-472-61211-8 .
  • Dietrich Feldhausen: In search of Esther L. A contribution to the working methods of a trivial author in the 18th century. In: Lichtenberg Jahrbuch 1989. Saarbrücken 1989, ISBN 3-925036-38-5 .
  • Alexander Košenina: Glass chest, readable heart: a psychopathographic topos under the sign of physiognomic tyranny in Chr. H. Spieß and others. In: German Life and Letters. 52, 1999, pp. 151-165.
  • Alexander Košenina: Schiller and the tradition of (criminal) psychological case history in Goethe, Meißner, Moritz and Spieß. In: Alice Stašková (Ed.): Friedrich Schiller and Europe: Aesthetics, Politics, History. Heidelberg 2007, pp. 119-139.
  • Carstenzell:  Spieß, Christian Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 694 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Günter Dammann: The conspiracy-theoretically motivated key scene of the horror novel in Christian Heinrich Spieß 'Die Löwenritter (1794/95). In: Barry Murnane et al. Andrew Cusack (Ed.): Popular Appearances. The German horror novel around 1800. Munich 2011, pp. 135–155.

Web links

Wikisource: Christian Heinrich Spieß  - Sources and full texts
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personal data
SURNAME Spit, Christian Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor, playwright and author of trivial literature
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Freiberg
DATE OF DEATH August 17, 1799
Place of death Besdiekau near Klattau , South Bohemia