Erwin Rotermund

Erwin Rotermund (born November 28, 1932 in Münster ; † January 9, 2018 in Mainz ) was a German literary scholar ( Venia Legendi for modern German literary history and general literary studies). He began his career at the Justus Liebig University of Gießen (1961–1968) and received offers from the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg (1968–1973) and the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (1973–1998).

Erwin Rotermund

Scientific career

Erwin Rotermund studied German, history, philosophy and musicology in Munich and Münster and received his doctorate in 1960 with the investigation The parody in modern German poetry to Dr. phil. As a research assistant at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (1961–1968), he took part in the first three conferences of the interdisciplinary research group Poetics and Hermeneutics ( Hans Robert Jauß , Clemens Heselhaus , Wolfgang Iser , Hans Blumenberg ). He completed his habilitation in 1968 with a paper on Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau . In the same year he became a full professor at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg . In 1973 he was offered a position at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , where he taught until his retirement (1998).

Rotermund was visiting professor at Middlebury College , Vermont (USA) and at the University of Graz . He has edited the Carl Zuckmayer yearbook together with Gunther Nickel (since 1998). From 1991 to 2009 he was also co-editor of exile research. An international yearbook (Vol. 9-27). Rotermund was also an honorary member of the Anna Seghers Society. His group of students includes Sigfrid Gauch , Günther Heeg, Sonja Hilzinger, Czesław Karolak (Poznań), Hermann Kurzke , Chong-Kill Lee † (Seoul), Dieter Mayer, Günter Oesterle and Bernhard Spies.

Research areas

Parody research

With his doctoral thesis The Parody in Modern German Poetry (1963) Rotermund achieved a fundamental work. Research continues to this day in an interdisciplinary manner based on the parody concept developed in it. The text collection Gegengesänge published a year later . Lyrical Parodies from the Middle Ages to the Present (1964) with its detailed foreword "History of lyrical parody in Germany" received 30 reviews, including in Die Zeit , Weltwoche (Zurich) and on the broadcaster Free Berlin . As a result, Rotermund occupied himself again and again with parodic imitation and its various intentions, types and historical characteristics. This also includes the extensive essay on mass madness and satire in Christoph Martin Wieland Abderiten , which shows how both the language of Orthodoxy and that of the radical Enlightenment are made ridiculous with the aid of "complementary parody".

Baroque research

In his second major book, Affekt und Artistik. Studies on the portrayal of passion and the method of argumentation by Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau (1972), Rotermund turned to the Baroque period and in it to a poet whose linguistic artistry had been neglected and misunderstood by research. With the focus on the passion topic, Rotermund again broke new ground: In the third volume of Poetics and Hermeneutics , he developed in his essay The Affect as a Literary Object: On the Theory and Representation of the Passiones in the 17th Century (1968) the basic features of affect research.

Exile research

Since the 1980s, Rotermund has increasingly devoted himself to his third major topic, literary exile. He wrote essays such as Persistence and Adaptation. The first years of the German exile drama (1987), the overview of German literature in exile for Viktor Žmegač's widespread literary history (1984, 1994 ² ) and the article Exile literature for the Lexicon Modern Literature in Basic Terms (1987, 1994 ² ). He was also interested in the discussions about the "Other Germany" in German exile poetry ( Lord Vansittart and the consequences , 2004) and remigration, for which he and Thomas Koebner published the volume Return from Exile . In it he dealt with Leonhard Frank's precarious position between East and West (1990).

Rotermund paid special attention to the exiled authors from Mainz: Four of his essays were directed at Anna Seghers , for whose controversial honorary citizenship in her hometown he strongly advocated. Carl Zuckmayer became important to Rotermund even before he became involved in the Zuckmayer yearbook, he treated him together with Ödön von Horváth in his essay on the renewal of the popular play in the Weimar Republic (1970) and together with Wolfgang Borchert and Max Frisch in the essay on Coming to terms with the past in German post-war drama (1976). On the largely neglected exile drama “Der Schelm von Bergen” (1998) he shed new light on the corporate state thinking; In addition, the assessment criteria and assessment practice of Zuckmayer's secret report were critically examined (2006) and his poet friendship with Gertrud von le Fort was traced (2010).

Rotermund is also to thank the forgotten Jewish author and theater man Rudolf Frank from Mainz for the first scientific appreciation ( season of one life , 2002). He dedicated the lecture Probation in Exile (1997) to the great Jewish surgeon Rudolf Nissen on his 100th birthday . In 1995 he gave the laudation in honor of Grete Weil on the occasion of the award of the Carl Zuckmayer Medal by the State of Rhineland-Palatinate . And with Ernst Glaeser he again took on a controversial author and tried to explain his early return to Nazi Germany.

Research on literary internal emigration and Nazi literature

Rotermund's fourth thematic focus - the still highly controversial literary "Inner Emigration" in the "Third Reich" - preoccupied him as early as 1967 in his habilitation lecture on "Covered Spelling". It was his concern to scientifically develop the non-National Socialist literature in the “Third Reich”, which was drawn either with total rejection or exaggerated apologetics in black and white. In particular, inspired by Leo Strauss's “stumbling block” theory ( Persecution and the Art of Writing , 1952), he tried , with the help of the change categories of ancient rhetoric and Paul Grice 's principles of communication, the literary-journalistic texts that shimmered between adaptation and resistance, which were written between 1933 and in 1945 could be published to examine their opposition content and the concealment and security that are always necessary at the same time.

Rotermund presented his poetics, rhetoric and hermeneutics of the “hidden spelling” in essays, but above all in the book Zwischenreich und Gegenwelten (1999), which was co-authored with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund . This book offers a selection of journalistic and literary texts written in "Third Reich" have been published, and with a material-rich commentary on the biography and the self-statements of the authors as well as on the genesis and reception of the texts lays the basis for their adequate comprehension and interpretation.

Rotermund also applied his method to Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen's Anabaptist novel Bockelson (2007) and to Stefan Andre's short prose from the early 1940s (1999). In an edition of Andres' prose from the years 1933–1945 (2010) he deepened these efforts in his detailed afterword. Beyond the narrower subject of the “hidden spelling”, he also sought to illuminate “Inner Emigration” by means of thematic cross-sections, for example in the essays Criticism of Religion in National Socialist Poetry and its Anti-Criticism in “Inner Emigration” (2007) and “Transfiguration and Criticism". Images of the Prussian Nobility in the Literature of Inner Emigration (2009). In addition, he presented the official National Socialist literature in Žmegač 'literary history (1984) and addressed the “inner-fascist opposition” in the poetry of the “Third Reich”, Gerhard Schumann's sonnet cycle “The Purity of the Reich” and his contemporary poem “The Court”, 1997.

Topics from the border area to music and history

One of the hallmarks of Rotermund is his concern for interdisciplinary topics, especially those that border on music. Among other things, he explored the musical and poetic "arabesque" in ETA Hoffmann (1968) and discovered the construction of world music from 1813 (1992) in the music descriptions of Dieter Kühn's novel Beethoven and the Black Violinist . In addition, Rotermund was always interested in historical figures such as Adam Lux , the Mainz Jacobin in revolutionary Paris (1990, 2003), about whom Stefan Zweig wrote an unfinished drama. In the brochure Walther Gottschalck (1875–1932) (2009) he traced the work of a Rhenish industrialist.

Fonts

parody

• The parody in modern German poetry . Munich 1963.
• Counter chants. Lyrical parodies from the Middle Ages to the present . Selected and introduced by Erwin Rotermund. Munich 1964.
• George parodies . In: Stefan George Colloquium. Edited by Eckhard Heftrich u. a. Cologne 1971, pp. 213-225.
• Mass madness and aesthetic therapy with Christoph Martin Wieland. To a reinterpretation of the "history of the Abderites" . In: Germanisch-Romanische monthly NF 28, 1978, pp. 417–451.
• La parodie dans la poésie de Hans Arp (Traduction française d'Eliane Kaufholz). In: Mélusine N ° IX (Arp Poète Plasticien. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg présentés par Aimée Bleikasten), 1987, p. 237-249.
• German drama parodies from the turn of the century . In: Short forms of the drama. Edited by Winfried Herget and Brigitte Schultze. Tübingen / Basel 1996, pp. 145–157.
• Parodistic and counterfactual Goethe reception in German exile literature 1933–1945: Schnog, Mehring and Koffler . In: Classic Reception. Dealing with a tradition. Festschrift for Wolfgang Düsing . Edited by Peter Ensberg and Jürgen Kost. Würzburg 2003. pp. 147–160.
• Acceleration of time, myth travesty and opera parody in Jacques Offenbach's “Orpheus in the Underworld” (1858) . In: amusement and horror. Studies in drama and theater in the 19th century . Edited by Franz Norbert Mennemeier and Bernhard Reitz. Tübingen 2006, pp. 229-246.

Baroque

• Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau . Stuttgart 1963 (= Metzler Collection 29).
• Affect as a literary object: On the theory and representation of the Passiones in the 17th century . In: The no longer fine arts. Limiting phenomena of the aesthetic . Edited by Hans Robert Jauß. Munich 1968 (= Poetics and Hermeneutics III), pp. 239–269.
• Affect and artistry. Studies on the portrayal of passion and the argumentation process at Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau . Munich 1972.

exile

• On the renewal of the popular play in the Weimar Republic: Zuckmayer and Horváth . In: Folk Culture and History. Festival ceremony for Josef Dünninger on his 65th birthday . Edited by Dieter Harmening a. a. Berlin 1970, pp. 612-633; also in: About Ödön von Horváth. Edited by Dieter Hildebrandt and Traugott Krischke. Frankfurt a. M. 1972 (= edition suhrkamp 584), pp. 18-45.
• On coming to terms with the past in German post-war drama: Zuckmayer, Borchert, Frisch . In: Blätter der Carl-Zuckmayer-Gesellschaft 2, 1976, pp. 76-85.
• Between exile poetry and inner emigration: Ernst Glaeser's story “Der Pächter”. A contribution to the literary “no man's land” 1933–1945 and to the poetic coming to terms with the past . Munich 1980.
• "Mirror" or "Splinter"? On the criticism of the criticism of Anna Seghers' poems from 1932 to 1935 . In: Blätter der Carl-Zuckmayer-Gesellschaft 6, 1980, pp. 207-216.
• Social engagement and poetry of "immediacy". A look over Anna Seghers' early and exile work . In: Anna Seghers - Mainzer Weltliteratur. Contributions on the occasion of the 80th birthday . Mainz 1981, pp. 58-70.
• German literature in exile 1933–1945 . In: History of German Literature from the 18th Century to the Present . Edited by Viktor Žmegač, Volume III / 1. Koenigstein / Ts. 1984, pp. 186-317 (2nd edition Weinheim 1994).
• Persistence and adaptation. The first years of the German exile drama (1933–1936) . In: Theater and Dramatic Literature. Contributions to the history of the theater . Edited by Günter Holtus. Tübingen 1987, pp. 343-358.
• Exile literature . In: Modern literature in basic terms . Edited by Dieter Borchmeyer and Viktor Žmegač. Frankfurt a. M. 1987, pp. 115-126 (2nd, revised edition. Tübingen 1994, pp. 123-134).
• Between East and West: Leonhard Frank in post-war Germany (1950–1961) . In: Return from Exile. Emigrants from the Third Reich in Germany after 1945. Essays in honor of Ernst Loewy . Edited by Thomas Koebner and Erwin Rotermund. Marburg 1990, pp. 67-81.
• Not to hate, to love I am. Laudation for Grete Weil . In: Carl Zuckmayer Medal of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate 1995. Grete Weil. An appreciation. Edited by the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate. Kaiserslautern 1996, pp. 10-16.
• Light leaves - dark leaves. Rudolf Nissen: parole in exile . In: 100 years of Rudolf Nissen . Edited by Felix Harder and Mario Rossetti. Basel Contributions to Surgery 9. Basel 1997, pp. 199–210.
• Between adaptation and time criticism. Carl Zuckmayer's exile drama “Der Schelm von Bergen” and corporate thinking around 1930 . In: Zuckmayer-Jahrbuch 1, 1998, pp. 233–249.
• Paths through the twentieth century: contemporary witness Anna Seghers . In: Argonaut ship . Yearbook of the Anna Seghers Society Berlin and Mainz eV, Vol. 10, 2001, pp. 67–78.
• Seven refugees and seven crosses. An unknown report from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In: Argonaut ship . Yearbook of the Anna Seghers Society Berlin and Mainz eV, Vol. 10, 2001, pp. 253-260.
• Who brought young Brecht onto the stage? Rudolf Frank as a sponsor of the "playwright" . In: Playtime of a Lifetime. Studies on the Mainz author and theater man Rudolf Frank (1886–1979) . Edited by Erwin Rotermund. Mainz 2002, pp. 19-34.
• "Treason" from "over-lust for success"? Ernst Glaeser in the judgment of Carl Zuckmayer . In: For discussion: Zuckmayer's "Secret Report" and other contributions to Zuckmayer research. Zuckmayer-Jahrbuch 5. Göttingen 2002, pp. 403-414.
• Lord Vansittart and the Consequences. Discussions about the “Other Germany” in German exile poetry - using the example of Dosio Koffler's play “Die Deutsche Walpurgisnacht” (1941) (together with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund). In: Literary and political concepts of Germany 1938–1949. Zuckmayer Yearbook 7. Göttingen 2004, pp. 141–161.
• "Characters" and "Traitors". Carl Zuckmayer's secret report from 1943/44. Assessment criteria and assessment practice . In: Carl Zuckmayer - Alexander Lernet-Holenia: Correspondence and other contributions to Zuckmayer research. Zuckmayer yearbook 8. Göttingen 2006, pp. 357-375.
• "Almost something like a 'confirmation'". Gertrud von le Fort and Carl Zuckmayer - a poet friendship in letters . In: Carl Zuckmayer - Josef Halperin: Correspondence and other contributions to Zuckmayer research. Zuckmayer yearbook 10. Göttingen 2010, pp. 321–334.
• Carl Zuckmayer. Vitalist, critical humanist, social representative. Collected speeches and essays (together with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund). Würzburg 2012.

Internal emigration and Nazi literature

• Literature in the “Third Reich” (together with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund). In: History of German Literature from the 18th Century to the Present. Edited by Viktor Žmegač, Volume III / 1. Koenigstein / Ts. 1984, pp. 318-384 (2nd edition. Weinheim 1994).
• Camouflage and protection in Rudolf Pechel's essay “Siberia” (1937). A study on the “hidden spelling” in the “Third Reich” . In: Textual Criticism and Interpretation. Festschrift for Karl Konrad Polheim on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Edited by Heimo Reinitzer. Bern / Frankfurt a. M./New York / Paris 1987, pp. 417-438.
• Herbert Küsels "Dietrich-Eckart" article of March 23, 1943. A contribution to the hermeneutics and poetics of the "hidden spelling" in the "Third Reich" . In: Poetics and History. Viktor Žmegač on his 60th birthday. Edited by Dieter Borchmeyer. Tübingen 1989, pp. 150-162.
• Gerhard Schumann's sonnet cycle “The Purity of the Reich” and his contemporary poem “The Court” - a sketch of the inner-fascist opposition in the poetry of the “Third Reich” . In: Traditions of Poetry. Festschrift for Hans-Henrik Krummacher. Edited by Wolfgang Düsing a. a. Tübingen 1997, pp. 169-182.
• Intermediate realms and opposing worlds. Texts and preliminary studies on the "hidden spelling" in the "Third Reich" (together with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund). Munich 1999.
• Disguised criticism of the regime in Stefan Andres' short prose from the early forties (together with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund). In: Stefan Andres - contemporary witness of the 20th century. Edited by Michael Braun u. a. Frankfurt a. M./Berlin/Bern/New York / Paris / Vienna 1999, pp. 105–121.
• Mind work and physiognomic knowledge. On Joachim Günther's journalism in the “Third Reich” . In: Journal for German Studies. NF IX, 1999, pp. 329-343.
• The fight for the German soul. Criticism of religion in National Socialist poetry and its anti-criticism in "Inner Emigration" (together with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund). In: Criticism of religion in literature and philosophy after the Enlightenment. Edited by Carsten Jakobi, Bernhard Spies and Andrea Jäger. Halle (Saale) 2007, pp. 190–206.
• Problems of the "hidden spelling" in the literary "inner emigration" 1933–1945: Fritz Reck-Malleczewen, Stefan Andres and Rudolf Pechel . In: "Saved and at the same time devoured by shame". New approaches to the literature of "Inner Emigration". Edited by Michael Braun and Georg Guntermann. Frankfurt a. M. 2007, pp. 17-38.
• "Transfiguration and Criticism". Pictures of the Prussian nobility in the literature of Inner Emigration (1933–1945), with special reference to Werner Bergengruen . In: literature for readers, vol. 32, 2009, no. 4, pp. 221–232; also in: Adel in Schlesien, Vol. 3: Aristocracy in Silesia and Central Europe. Literature and culture from the early modern era to the present. Edited by Walter Schmitz in conjunction with Jens Stüben and Matthias Weber. Munich 2013, pp. 607–619 (Writings of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, Vol. 48).
• "Concealed Writing" in the "Third Reich": Forms and Problems of Reception. [Translated from German by Gert Reifarth and Paul Brussard]. In: Aesopic Voices. Re-framing Truth through Concealed Ways of Presentation in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Ed. by Gert Reifarth & Philip Morrissey. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011, pp. 76–100 and in the original German version: Forms and reception problems of the “hidden spelling” in the “Third Reich” (1933–1945). In: Between Inner Emigration and Exile. German-speaking writers 1933–1945. Edited by Marcin Gołaszewski, Magdalena Kardach and Leonore Krenzlin. Berlin / Boston 2016, pp. 29–47.
• Melancholy literature by melancholics? On the poetry of “Inner Emigration” 1933–1945 . In: Writers and Resistance. Facets and problems of "inner emigration". Edited by Frank-Lothar Kroll and Rüdiger von Voss. Göttingen 2012, pp. 221–241.

Border area to music and history

• Musical and poetic “arabesque” at ETA Hoffmann . In: Poetica 2, 1968, pp. 48-69.
• Artist dramas of the turn of the century . In: Drama and theater at the turn of the century. Edited by Dieter Kafitz †. Tübingen 1991, pp. 21-35.
• World music from 1813. Comments on the music descriptions in Dieter Kühn's novel “Beethoven and the Black Violinist” . In: literature for readers 4/1992, pp. 238–248.
• Artistry and commitment. Essays on German literature . Edited by Bernhard Spies. Wuerzburg 1994.
• A Jacobin from Mainz in revolutionary Paris. Stefan Zweig's drama "Adam Lux" . In: Stefan Zweig: Adam Lux. With essays by Franz Dumont and Erwin Rotermund. Obernburg am Main 2003, pp. 147-165.
• Presentation of a forgotten literary critic (together with Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund). In: Wolfgang Grözinger. Panorama of the international contemporary novel. Collected "Hochland" reviews 1952–1965. Edited and introduced by Erwin Rotermund and Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund. Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2004, pp. 15–50.
• Acceleration of time, myth travesty and opera parody in Jacques Offenbach's “Orpheus in the Underworld” (1858) . In: amusement and horror. Studies in drama and theater in the 19th century. Edited by Franz Norbert Mennemeier and Bernhard Reitz. Tübingen 2006, pp. 229-246.
• General director Dipl.-Ing. Walther Gottschalck (1875–1932). Thirty-three years for the Bonn-Oberkassel cement works . Mainz 2009.
• Choral quote and Chopin allusion. Schumann's Heine setting, Op. 24, No. 8 - a fascinating and unique piece in German art song history . In: music contexts. Festschrift for Hanns-Werner Heister. Vol. 2nd ed. By Thomas Phleps and Wieland Reich. Münster 2011, pp. 750-756.

Editorial activity

• Studies on German and European literature of the 19th and 20th centuries . Edited by Dieter Kafitz †, Franz Norbert Mennemeier and Erwin Rotermund. Frankfurt a. M. u. a. 1986ff. (from 1988, vol. 7).
• Return from exile. Emigrants from the Third Reich in Germany after 1945 . Edited by Thomas Koebner and Erwin Rotermund. Marburg 1990.
• Exile research. An international yearbook . Edited on behalf of the Society for Exile Research by Claus-Dieter Krohn , Erwin Rotermund, Lutz Winckler and Wulf Koepke †. Munich 1983ff. (from 1991, vol. 9 to 2009, vol. 27).
• Zuckmayer yearbook . Edited by Gunther Nickel, Erwin Rotermund and Hans Wagener on behalf of the Carl-Zuckmayer-Gesellschaft. St. Ingbert 1998ff .; Göttingen 2002ff.
• Game time of a lifetime. Studies on the Mainz author and theater man Rudolf Frank (1886–1979) . Edited by Erwin Rotermund. Mainz 2002.
• Wolfgang Groezinger. Panorama of the international contemporary novel. Collected "Hochland" reviews 1952–1965 . Edited and introduced by Erwin Rotermund and Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund. Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2004.
• Stefan Andres: "We are Utopia". Prose from the years 1933–1945 . Edited by Erwin Rotermund and Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund, with the assistance of Thomas Hilsheimer. Göttingen 2010.

literature

• Kurt Mautz: Order of the Tower . In: KM: Location determination. Poems - grammatical ballads permutations. Düsseldorf 1984, p. 55.
• Portrayed in novels as Prof. Mundschenk (Lothar Schöne: Sahlheimer . Gifkendorf 1984) and as Prof. Erwin Schwarzkopf (Sigfrid Gauch: Winterhafen . Blieskastel 1999).
• On Rotermund's “scientific biography” cf. Bernhard Spies: Preliminary remark . In: Erwin Rotermund: Artistry and engagement. Essays on German literature. Edited by Bernhard Spies. Würzburg 1994, pp. 5-7.
• Preface . In: exile, uprooting, hybridity. Edited by Claus-Dieter Krohn and Lutz Winckler in conjunction with Wulf Koepke † and Erwin Rotermund. Exile research. An international yearbook 27, 2009, pp. IX - X.
• On the history of the Würzburg chair
• Festschrift for Erwin Rotermund: Mimesis, Mimicry, Simulatio. Camouflage and exposure in the arts from the 16th to the 21st centuries. Edited by Hanns-Werner Heister and Bernhard Spies. Berlin 2013 (Music / Society / History, Vol. 6).

Web links

• Homepage
• Directory of Germanists. University of Erlangen
• rlp-forschung.de
• German studies, University of Mainz
• Carl Zuckmayer
• wbr-online.de ( RTF ; 31 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dr. Erwin Rotermund: Obituary notice. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. January 13, 2018, accessed January 13, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Günther Heeg
3. ↑ Sonja Hilzinger
4. ↑ Dieter Mayer ( Memento from May 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
5. ^ Günter Oesterle ( Memento from January 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Bernhard Spiess ( Memento from May 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
7. ^ Affect research
8. ↑ Heidrun Ehrke-Rotermund
9. ↑ History of the Würzburg Chair (PDF; 99 kB)