Friederike Kempner

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Friederike Kempner

Friederike Kempner (born June 25, 1828 in Opatow , Posen province ; † February 23, 1904 at Gut Friederikenhof near Reichthal , Silesia ) was a German poet .

Life

family

Coming from a rich Jewish family - her father was Joachim Kempner, her mother Marie Aschkenasy - Friederike Kempner lived after her childhood in Opatow (in the then Prussian province of Posen ) with her four siblings on the manor Riemberg ( Polish : Ryniec) in Droschkau ( Silesia ), which her father bought in 1844. Her upbringing was in the hands of her mother, who also trained her in the French language, literature and the Jewish Enlightenment . The brother David Kempner was a city councilor in Breslau and a writer, a writing of her sister Luise, married. Stadthagen, published Friederike posthumously. In 1864 she moved into her own Friederikenhof ( Polish : Gierczyce) estate , which was owned by the family. Both parents died in 1868; The death of her mother in particular was a traumatic event for Friederike Kempner, which she later recalled in many poems. The writer remained unmarried throughout her life.

Gravestone in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wroclaw

Her urn grave is in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wroclaw . On her grave slab it reads: "Her life was dedicated to spiritual work and works of charity."

social commitment

In addition to her literary work, she devoted herself to nursing and poor welfare throughout her life and campaigned for reform of the prison system (Against solitary confinement , 1884). Like other greats of her time, she was also worried about being buried alive . She successfully campaigned for the construction of morgues and the extension of the waiting period between death and burial in order to avoid the problem of fictitious death, which was sometimes medically undetected at the time (memorandum on the necessity of the legal introduction of morgues, first in 1850). In 1871 she was awarded the “Commemorative Coin for Loyalty to Duty in War” for her commitment. In addition to her philanthropic and social reform activities, Kempner wrote novellas , historical tragedies and poems .

Literary work

Friederike Kempner was a prolific author of pamphlets, novels and dramas. Her most influential work is considered to be the memorandum on the need for a legal introduction of morgues , which between 1850 and 1867 had six editions. Also the courageous little book about humanity. With an appendix: Against solitary confinement or cell prison there were several prints (1884 and 1885).

Her numerous dramas, mainly devoted to historical subjects (including 1850: Berenize , 1880: Antigonos , 1886: Jahel , 1888: The lazy spot in the state of Denmark or: A funny marriage ) were more widely used as reading texts than on the stage; Only Rudolf the Second or the Majesty's letter from 1867 (2nd edition 1896) was performed (in 1873 at the Berlin City Theater and 1874 at the Wroclaw Theater of Praise ). Her prose writings (including 1861: Novellas , 1893: Roger Bacon , 1898: In der Goldenen Gans and A Question from Friedrich the Great ) found a readership, but - like the dramas - remained largely unnoticed by literary criticism.

Friederike Kempner achieved almost unique fame as a poet. Her poems , first published in 1873, were in their eighth edition in 1903. At this point in time, literary criticism had long since declared her the grandmaster of involuntary comedy, and she was christened "Silesian nightingale" and "Silesian swan". In 1880, the writer Paul Lindau presented her poems in a highly ironic way in the weekly Die Gegenwart, which he published himself, and thus pointed out Kempner's adventurous mistakes in word creations, metaphors and rhymes to a wide readership (on Paris: “You know who I mean | The city lies on the Seine ").

The foreword by Frank Möbus in the edition “Do you know the land where the lianas bloom?” Poems of the Silesian Swan , published by Reclam, Stuttgart 2009, provides a literary evaluation of their literary achievements or mistakes .

Parodies

Soon after Paul Lindau's review, the first parodies of Kempner's poems appeared. In 1885, the poet's greetings to Friederike Kempner von Methuselah , published by an anonymous person in the Berlin publishing house Eckstein, came onto the market, followed in 1891, also anonymously and by the same publisher, by the volume Demon, Mensch und Dichter. Poems of the Silesian Nightingale . Between 1886 and 1896, numerous authors parodied Kempner's poems in the Aeolian harp calendar produced by the literary society of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Reimverein .

These numerous, often deceptively real, parodies have had a career that is perhaps unique in literary history since the middle of the 20th century at the latest. For example, in the edition Friederike Kempner, the Silesian Swan (first 1953) edited by Herrmann Mostar , the edition The Nightingale in the Inkwell for which Walter Meckauer was responsible from 1953 and also in Horst Drescher's edition Das Leben ist ein Gedichte (from 1971) these appeared Parodies are now supposedly original poems by Friederike Kempner, who has since become famous above all for those texts that she did not write. An example are the well-known verses on the astronomer Johannes Kepler : “A whole sheet of world history: | You have done it! ”Or, referring to your own poetry:“ Do not contain this inheritance Your descendants! ”Accordingly, these texts are naturally missing in the last edition of 1903, organized by Friederike Kempner herself. Mostar claimed in his widespread edition that these poems, which were unprinted during the poet's lifetime, were passed on to him as“ yellowed leaves ”; Friederike Kempner left these texts in the guest book of the “Goldene Gans” inn.

The claim, repeated since then, that Kempner's texts only found such widespread circulation because her relatives tried to “buy up all available copies” in order to “curb the laughter that broke out over the family”, probably originates from Mostar; in fact there is no historical evidence of this. Rather, the mentions Friederike Kempner speak in contemporary literary history essays (for example, that of Karl Bleibtreu ) and representations of contemporary poetry as in the "voluntary disclosure" of Phantasus of Arno Holz that the poems Kempner had certainly become widespread.

Of course, there is evidence that the writer Alfred Kerr changed his birth name Kempner because she wrote "the worst verses ever known on this planet". Brecht kept making nasty allusions, Kerr countered in the poem Friederike Kempner: "If the donkey can't think of anything else, / it thinks of my aunt ........ That you, my dead aunt / aren't my aunt at all. " Kerr wrote her a letter when she was fifteen and received a very friendly reply from her; he took both letters with him into exile.

The Friederike Kempner edition published by Nick Barkow and Peter Hacks in 1989 provides a reliable text basis . Poet life, heavenly gift ; the epilogue of this edition also provides a history of the aforementioned Pseudo-Kempneriana.

Text examples

Examples from Kempner's poems

Sweat
Do you want to reach your goal
Win a well-deserved award,
Must the sweat run down
From the ceiling to the hall!
From America
America, you land of dreams,
You wonder world so long and wide,
How beautiful are your coconut trees
And your lively loneliness!
From Heine
Witzli Putzli be taken -
All poetry is pure!
From Abdel-Kader's dream
Drunk he kissed the home soil:
"Allah, Allah" - he calls, - "my desert!"
Untitled
The world is obsessed
Of selfishness and money
And everything for -
Despair stupid!

Examples of parodies (Pseudo-Kempneriana)

The following texts come - although they are repeatedly printed under the name of Friederike Kempner - not from the "Silesian nightingale", but from anonymous parodists of her poems:

From Johannes Kepler
A whole sheet of world history
You made it full!
When the lovely spring billows
And you wreath yourself with violets
If you look with firm courage
Put the chives in the scrambled eggs
Circling through man's juices
New undreamt-of powers -
Any constipation gives way
All hearts become light
And mine asks itself silently:
"Does anyone want me this year?"
Clear
One thing is clear to me at every deadline:
Life is the way it is!
Because even if it were different
Does it agree with itself?
So that one then has to say:
Life is the way it is.
From last reminder
And if one day I die
The muses choir remind you:
Does not contain this legacy
Your descendants!
Indian
Stretched out in the bushes
Hindu rest lazily,
Poisonous snake licks
Greedy mouth.
Only takes off then
Jump in on Hindu
Beat the poor man
Poison tooth in the bones.
Hindu wants to flee -
Limbs are cramped -
Silently pray to the Buddha
And parting gently.

Reception as a serious poet

In addition to the description of Kempner as an involuntarily comical poet, her peculiarity is increasingly being received seriously. One example is the almanac published by Peter Böthig in 1998 on the occasion of Gerhard Wolf 's 70th birthday with the Kempner title The Posie is always right . In 2018, a war memorial in Villach will be expanded to include the poem Peace by Kempner.

Works (selection)

  • Memorandum on the need for a legal introduction of morgues (polemic, 1850)
  • Berenice (Drama, 1850), online
  • Novellas (1861)
  • Rudolf the Second or the Letter of Majesty (Drama, 1867)
  • Nettelbeck, or: patriot and cosmopolitan . (Novella, Dietze, Dresden 1868)
  • Antigonus (drama, 1880)
  • The little book of mankind. With an appendix: Against solitary confinement or cell prison (pamphlet, 1884)
  • The right to life, not just the “right to work”. A contemplation (pamphlet, 1884)
  • Jahel (drama, 1886)
  • The Lazy Spot in the State of Denmark or: A Merry Marriage (Comedy, 1886)
  • Roger Bacon (novella, 1893)
  • Nettelbeck. Miss Maria Brown (short stories, 1893)
  • In the Golden Goose (short stories, 1898)
  • A question from Frederick the Great (Novella, 1898)
  • A word in hard times (polemic, around 1899)
  • Poems (8th edition, 1903)
  • Nick Barkow, Peter Hacks (Eds.): Dichterleben, Himmelsgabe (Complete Poems), Berlin 1989
  • Frank Möbus (Ed.): “Do you know the land where the lianas bloom?” Poems by the Silesian swan. Reclam, Stuttgart 2009

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: Friederike Kempner  - Quotes
Wikisource: Friederike Kempner  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Friederike Kempner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kempner, Friederike. 1828-1904. Wroclaw Jewish Cemetery. Photo of the tombstone.
  2. ↑ Friederike Kempner. Poetry is life. Life - work - effect. 4. Biography II ( Memento from February 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) , Friederike-Kempner-Gesellschaft
  3. ^ Friederike Kempner: Poems in the Gutenberg-DE project
  4. ↑ Gerhart H. Mostar: Friederike Kempner, the Silesian swan. The genius of involuntary comedy. 5th edition, Munich 1972, p. 114
  5. ↑ Gerhart H. Mostar: Friederike Kempner, the Silesian swan. The genius of involuntary comedy , 5th edition. Munich 1972, flyleaf.
  6. ↑ Cf. Carl Bleibtreu: Revolution der Literatur. Leipzig 1886, p. 65.
  7. ↑ In: Die Zukunft, April 30, 1898, pp. 210–219, p. 211.
  8. ↑ Alfred Kerr: Experienced. Travel to the world. Edited by Hermann Haarmann (= Alfred Kerr: works in individual volumes. Ed. By Hermann Haarmann and Günther Rühle. Vol. 1.2). Berlin 1989, p. 146.
  9. ↑ Cf. Friederike Kempner: Dichterleben, Himmelsgabe. All the poems. Edited by Nick Barkow and Peter Hacks. Berlin 1989, p. 271 f .; see. also Friederike Kempner: “Do you know the land where the lianas bloom?” Poems by the Silesian swan. Edited by Frank Möbus. Stuttgart 2009, pp. 7-27.
  10. ↑ Peter Böthig (Ed.): Poetry is always right: Gerhard Wolf. Author editor publisher. A 70th birthday almanac. Gerhard Wolf Janus Press, 1998. ISBN 9783928942591 .
  11. ^ Friederike Kempner: The poetry.
  12. ↑ The war memorial is expanded to include a message of peace. Press release from the city of Villach from September 25, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Kempner, Friederike
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Opatow , Poznan Province
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1904
Place of death Gut Friederikenhof near Reichthal , Silesia