Friedrich Gustav Schilling

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Friedrich Gustav Schilling around 1800

Friedrich Gustav Schilling (born November 25, 1766 in Dresden , † July 30, 1839 there ; pseudonym: Zebedäus Kukuk, the younger) was a German poet and fiction writer. He mainly published short stories and novels. Some of his first poems appeared in Friedrich Schiller's magazine Thalia . He is known to this day for his erotic novel The Memories of Mr. H.

origin

Schilling was born in Dresden in 1766 as the son of the Electoral Saxon civil servant and country squire Johann Friedrich Schilling and Eleonore Friederike Ferber. His family had owned the aristocratic Zscheila estate near Meißen from around 1710 , where Schilling spent most of his youth. His godfather was the then famous poet Gottlieb Wilhelm Rabener .

Life

From 1779 to 1781 he attended the Fürstenschule Sankt Afra in Meissen as a pupil of the rector at the time , after having previously been taught by various tutors. In 1781, however, he went to the army at his own request, where he finally came to an artillery unit in Freiberg on April 15, 1782, where he began an officer career. At that time Schilling was already active as a writer. He tried his hand at first as a poet and writer of dramas. In 1789 three of his poems appeared in the Thalia magazine after he had asked Friedrich Schiller to do so in an exchange of letters. However, he turned to writing novels and short stories early on. He wrote interesting satires about the Rhine campaign in 1792 and the battle of Jena and Auerstedt under the pseudonym "Zebedäus Kukuk (the elder / the younger)". In 1810 he was finally dismissed with the rank of captain. After he was still one of the supporters of the politics of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808 , he later took part in the wars of liberation in the ranks of the Lützow Freikorps , where he acquired the Iron Cross . After 1814 he devoted himself exclusively to his writing activities. As early as 1800, Schilling was one of the best-known and most successful entertainment writers in Germany , alongside August Friedrich Ernst Langbein , August Lafontaine and Heinrich Clauren .

plant

Friedrich Gustav Schilling was an exceptionally fruitful writer. His last-hand edition included over 80 novels, short stories and short stories alone, without being complete. His dramas, poems and his most successful early work, Guido von Sohnsdom, were missing in this issue . In general, only parts of his early work have been preserved, which is due not least to the qualitative deficiencies of these first attempts. Later, too, his novels and stories were often rated only moderately by critics, as was the case with Karl Friedrich Ludwig Goedeke , who wrote that Schilling was "flat in the choice of materials, everyday, in inventing not without talent, in the presentation lively, sometimes witty, more fun, light-hearted in style, well acquainted with people's weaknesses and misery, only without any inkling of a higher artistic or moral requirement ”, while Ferdinand Stolle judged differently that talents and powers were truly more important to him than them Majority of readers think. In fact, the works of Schilling are typical social novels of the early romantic period, which need not fear comparison with the works of August Lafontaine or Jane Austen . His memorabilia of Mr. H. have been translated into several languages ​​and can rightly be considered a work of erotic world literature. His reports on the campaigns of 1792 on the Rhine and the double battles of Jena and Auerstädt are just as interesting contemporary testimonies as his memories from his youth. Since many of his works have autobiographical traits, in 1941 his grandson Heinar Schilling compiled the book Pauker, Mädchen und soldiers from some of his texts , in which his childhood and youth are described. In 2009 it was revised and reissued under the title Der kleine Junker . The other works by Friedrich Gustav Schilling have largely been forgotten.

Selected Works

  • Bathing my moods. Vienna 1781
  • Memories of Herr von H., a German nobleman. Rome 1787
  • Poems. Freiberg and Annaberg 1790
  • Guido von Sohnsdom. Freiberg 1791, 3rd edition 1802
  • Röschen's secrets. Pirna 1798
  • Julius. Freiberg 1799
  • Clärchen's confessions. Freiberg 1799
  • The woman as she is. Dresden 1800
  • Fonts. Dresden 1810
  • The honeymoon of my marriage. Dresden 1812
  • Friedrich Kind , Friedrich Laun and Gustav Schilling: Das Gespenst, Arnoldische Buchhandlung, Dresden, 1814 .
  • All the writings. Dresden 1828
  • Girls, timpanists and soldiers. Dresden 1941, compiled from his writings by Heinar Schilling
  • The little junker. Bautzen 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-029487-7 , compiled from his writings by Eric Beyer

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New Nekrolog der Deutschen Born 1839, Volume XVII, 2nd part
  2. ↑ Thalia, Volume 2, 1789 and Volume 3, 1790
  3. ↑ Schilling family chronicle in the Schillinghaus Mittweida
  4. ↑ see moonstone throws by Z. Kuckuck dJ , 1808
  5. ↑ The standard sequence of Erik sex , 1948
  6. ↑ Compare Der kleine Junker , ISBN 978-3-00-029487-7 , Chapter XVIII ff.
  7. ↑ Assessment in the preface to the memorabilia of Herr von H., a German nobleman. , area-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-89996-432-2
  8. ↑ Girls, timpanists and soldiers. Dresden 1941, Meinholdsche Verlagsgesellschaft

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Friedrich Gustav Schilling  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Schilling, Friedrich Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kukuk, Zebedee (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet and fiction writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 1839
Place of death Dresden