Friedrich August Schulze

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Friedrich August Schulze

Friedrich August Schulze (best known under the pseudonym Friedrich Laun ; born June 1, 1770 in Dresden ; died September 4, 1849 there ) was a German entertainment writer. Together with August Apel , he was the author of the ghost book , whose story Der Freischütz was the model for the libretto of Weber's opera .

Life

Schulze's father owned a banking business, but speculated about himself, disappeared and from then on remained undetectable, whereupon the mother was forced to take the threatened business into her hands and thus secure the family's livelihood. The son Friedrich August was supposed to take up a practical job and become a businessman, according to the wishes of mother and stepfather Friedrich Egg, Schulze initially became an accessist in the electoral finance office , but the job did not suit him. In 1798 he gave up the position and began studying at the University of Leipzig , where he dealt with legal, philosophical and historical questions. He wrote entertaining novels to finance his studies. The first work of this kind, The Gray Brothers or the League of the Terrible , a secret society story corresponding to the current interest of the time, was published as early as 1795. The lawyer and publicist Georg Friedrich Rebmann , whom Schulze had met in Richter's bookstore, had encouraged him to write. As a result, Schulze developed into an extremely productive author who wrote almost 200 works, including novels, dramas, poems, short stories and short stories. Goedeke alone lists 145 titles. He had little success with his dramatic works, but his narrative works were appreciated by the public. In addition to his numerous novels, from 1835 onwards there were mainly small contributions in paperbacks, magazines and journals. In addition to historical and fantastic stories, topics are often family conflicts of the upper middle class and the lower nobility, in which an increasing self-confidence of the middle class is reflected.

In 1807 he again became an official and secretary at the Landesökonomie-Manufactur and Commercien-Deputation . The office in which he was promoted to the position of commissioner in 1820 does not seem to have prevented him from extensive literary activity. He also founded a sociable literary association, the Liederkreis , which made a lot of talk in Dresden's cultural life. In general, Schulze was well connected in the literary life of Dresden and beyond, he was known to Friedrich Kind , ETA Hoffmann , Jean Paul , Friedrich Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck , who wrote a foreword to his collected writings in which he made Schulze a “favorite writer of the nation ”. In addition, he maintained friendly contact with several booksellers and publishers, including Sander in Berlin, Cotta in Tübingen and Tauchnitz in Leipzig. The contemporary criticism was initially quite friendly, but especially in later years it was rather negative. One seems to have resented his lack of participation in the national enthusiasm in the age of the Wars of Liberation. The General German Biography wrote in 1891 : “The great movement of the Wars of Liberation slipped past S. without deepening it or stimulating greater momentum. The trip to the land of milk and honey, a carnival fairy tale , was the fruit that S. produced in the days of the national uprising. ”He is regarded by German literary scholars as a prolific writer and trivial author. Apart from the ghost book , his works are largely forgotten today.

Schulze himself saw his writing qualities as extremely modest:

“When I take a look at my writings, I can not help but sigh. I feel all too well that a surprising idea, a pretty situation or a twist that floated up before me led my pen to the creation of an entire work, which then either lacked a sufficient basis, which could not be improved upon was able to replace, or that unnoticed found itself entangled in the same ideas that I had already carried out earlier […]. And that, I think, is one of my main mistakes, that and the often inadequate elaboration and delimitation of the various characters, which Jean Paul rightly reproached me for in a letter, also in the advice that I should focus more on writing Time as paper should take, hit the nail on the head. "

Works (selection)

His better-known works include:

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich August Schulze  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich Laun is the name of the protagonist in Schulze's first great success, the novel The Man on Freier's Feet , published in 1800 .
  2. ^ Letter from Schulze to Apel dated January 12, 1815 .
  3. ↑ Collected Writings. Vol. 1, Stuttgart 1843, p. 5.
  4. ↑ Quoted from: Heinrich Döring : Friedrich August Schulze. In: New Nekrolog der Deutschen . Vol. 27/1849. Weimar 1851, p, 717.
personal data
SURNAME Schulze, Friedrich August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laun, Friedrich (pseudonym); Claerobscuer (pseudonym); Chiaroscuro (pseudonym); Jeremias (pseudonym); Felix Wohlgemuth (pseudonym); Christian Heinrich Spieß (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entertainment writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1770
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 1849
Place of death Dresden