Georg Heym

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Georg Heym
Heym Signature.gif

Georg Heym (born October 30, 1887 in Hirschberg , Silesia , † January 16, 1912 in Gatow ) was a German writer . He is considered to be one of the most important poets of early literary expressionism .

Life

family

Georg Heym was the son of the state and later Reich military prosecutor Hermann Heym (1850–1920) and his wife Jenny Heym, b. Taistrzik, (1850-1923). He had a sister named Gertrud (1889–1920).

The relationship to the bourgeois-conservative parental home was problematic. Rudolf Balcke, the brother of his best friend Ernst , stated in a letter dated September 3, 1946:

“Father Heym was very melancholy, strongly religious, and actively involved in the Inner Mission . Mrs. Heym never stood out, his sister Gertrud was also very ecclesiastical and religious and rejected all worldly things and joys. Also tended to sadness. G. Heym, who affirmed life and its joys, never felt comfortable in this environment. "

Heym was referring heavily to his father. His writing began shortly after he went to a sanatorium for a year after attending an execution as a prosecutor. While earlier entries in the diary document an inner closeness to the father, in later entries a downright disgust for him becomes apparent. The relationship with the mother and sister was always weak.

School career and professional development

The young Heym's school attendance was characterized by frequent changes of location, which resulted from his father's official transfers. From 1896 he attended the Gymnasium Gnesen , from 1899 the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Posen and from October 1900 the Joachimsthalsche Gymnasium in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . Here, however, he was not promoted to the top class. The Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium Neuruppin accepted him, but here too he was initially refused admission to the school-leaving examination in autumn 1906; after another application for admission, he was able to leave the school on March 20, 1907 with graduation.

House of the Corps Rhenania Würzburg before 1910

In May 1907 he began to study law in Würzburg , where he lived at Körnerstraße 2. He became a member of the Corps Rhenania Würzburg for a good year . Initially an enthusiastic corps student and good fencer, he soon found corps life "terrible, mind-numbing, dull, ridiculous" and left the union - whether voluntary or required, remains unclear even after the reports from Kosen in 1908/09.

In November 1908 he moved to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin , his family settled in the then Berlin suburb of Charlottenburg in early 1909 . At the beginning of May 1910 he enrolled at the University of Jena , only to finally return to Berlin. In September he submitted his housework for the First State Examination on "The reform of the urban order by Freiherr vom Stein 1808".

Georg Heym hated law, his father's profession, which forced him to pursue this academic career. On November 29, 1910, he wrote in his diary: “My nature is like being in a straitjacket. I'm already bursting in the seams of my brain. [...] And now I have to stuff myself like an old pig on the mast with the legal department, it sucks. I would rather spit on the mess than take it in the mouth. I have such urge to create something. I am in good health to accomplish something. Yes, it sucks. "

In mid-January 1911, the first state examination was passed, but his preparatory service in the Lichterfelde district court near Berlin lasted barely four months, as he was released early because of the inadmissible destruction of a land register file. The University of Würzburg rejected his dissertation on July 7, 1911. Heym had the opportunity to take up the legal preparatory service in Wusterhausen / Dosse again, but this attempt also failed. For a long time he had contemplated joining the military and pursuing a career as an officer. After unsuccessful efforts, the Metz Infantry Regiment No. 98 ( Metz ) finally granted an entry request, but the approval was only received after his death in Berlin.

The new club

The winter of 1909/1910 was decisive for the development of the poet Heym, when Kurt Hiller and Jakob van Hoddis founded the New Club , an “association of students and young artists who vowed to stop the blasphemies of that time To watch idly and to publicly announce their disgust, especially their commits in art and science, and their admiration for the individual spirits ”, as the New Club member Erwin Loewenson stated in a letter to Frank Wedekind on April 22, 1910. In addition to Heym, Loewenson, Hiller and van Hoddis, Ernst Blass , David Baumgardt , Robert Jentzsch , Friedrich Koffka , Friedrich Schulze-Maizier , Erich Unger and John Wolfsohn also belonged to the club's inner circle.

Death and afterlife

On January 16, 1912, Georg Heym had a fatal accident while ice-skating on the Havel when he tried to save his broken-in and drowning friend Ernst Balcke .

Heym's grave in the Luisengemeinde cemetery on Fürstenbrunner Weg in Berlin-Charlottenburg was leveled in 1942 after the 30-year rest period. In January 2009 the grave site (HI, 6.9 / 10) was redesigned by private donors. A limestone bears the inscription KEITAI , according to the inscription that Georg Heym wished for in his diary entry of October 30, 1910: “There should be nothing else on my tombstone than KEITAI. No name, nothing. KEITAI. He sleeps, he rests. "

plant

Georg Heym left around 500 poems and lyrical drafts; even among those of the main creative phase, i.e. from January 1910, there are not only the Expressionist topoi later classified as such , but also pieces of pastoral lightness, for example. In addition to this extensive lyric work, Georg Heym left behind a few prose pieces and a few dramatic works.

Influences

Heym's diaries show a special admiration for Friedrich Nietzsche , Friedrich Hölderlin , Dmitri Sergejewitsch Mereschkowski and Christian Dietrich Grabbe . Heinrich von Kleist was also important to him .

Poetry

Heym's first poetic attempts go back to 1900, probably triggered by the absence of his father, who was spending a year in the sanatorium at that time. A certain epigonality and alignment with the tone of the epoch can be clearly noted in these earliest works, but at the same time symbols and image fields are already laid out, which recur in the later work, e.g. B. the sky, the sea, the evening and the night, the god, the tombs and the fog.

Prose work

On November 29 and 30, 1911, Heym concluded a contract with his publisher Ernst Rowohlt for the publication of a volume of novels which, according to one of the stories, was to be entitled The Thief . A total of seven texts intended for this purpose have been completely preserved (“The Fifth October”, “ The Crazy ”, “Little Jonathan”, “The Section”, “The Ship”, “An Afternoon”, “The Thief”), as well as fourteen others short sketches and drafts that can be attributed to the narrative prose work.

reception

Despite his short life, Heym is today one of the most important German-language poets and a pioneer of literary expressionism.

“The lyricist and novelist might have become one of the greatest poets in Germany, at least of the twentieth century. His poetry, which combines formal rigor with astonishing richness of images and bold visions, is characterized by an incomparable, ecstatic-demonic aura and has to a large extent shaped the idea of ​​German Expressionism, especially early Expressionism. "

- Marcel Reich-Ranicki , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 18, 2003

Works

Poetry

Listed here are collections of poetry published during his lifetime and posthumously .

  • The god of the city (1910)
  • The Eternal Day Rowohlt, Leipzig ( 1911 )
  • The condor . 1912 ed. by Kurt Hiller , contains by Heym (still concerned with himself): Berlin, The Suburb, Dreaming in Light Blue, The Blind, The Tree, After the Battle, Louis Capet, The Professors, The Fever Hospital, Ophelia
  • The War (1911)
  • The City (1911)
  • Umbra vitae Postponed poems. Posthumous ed. von Rowohlt, Leipzig 1912 and with 47 woodcuts by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner von Wolff, Munich 1924
  • Marathon sonnets. Posthumous ed. in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1914; after the writer's msg. and ext. by Karl Ludwig Schneider . Maximilian-Ges., Hamburg 1956
  • Poetry album 282 , Märkischer Verlag Wilhelmshorst 2009, ISBN 978-3-931329-82-2 .

prose

  • The thief. A book of novels. (posthumously ed. 1913), therein: The fifth of October, The Crazy, The Section, Jonathan, The Ship, One Afternoon, The Thief.

drama

  • The campaign to Sicily (1907/1908; 1910)
  • The wedding of Bartolomeo Ruggieri (1908; 1910)
  • Atlanta or Fear (1910/1911)
  • Arnold of Brescia (1905–1908; unfinished)
  • Prince Louis Ferdinand (1907; 1909; unfinished)
  • Iugurtha (1908; unfinished)
  • Anthony of Athens (1908; unfinished)
  • Spartacus (1908; unfinished)
  • Lucius Sergius Catilina (1908; unfinished)
  • The storm on the Bastille (1908; unfinished)
  • The Revolution (1908; unfinished)
  • The death of the hero (1908/1910; unfinished)
  • The madness of Herostratus (1910; unfinished)
  • Louis XVI (1910; unfinished)
  • Grifone (1909–1911; unfinished)
  • Cenci (1911; unfinished)

Other fonts

  • Attempting a New Religion (1909)

expenditure

Work edition

  • Karl Ludwig Schneider (Ed.): Georg Heym: Seals and writings . Complete edition.
    • Volume 1: Poetry. With Gunter Martens with the help of Klaus Hurlebusch and Dieter Knoth. 1964; DNB 366187600
    • Volume 2: Prose and Drama. With Curt Schmigelski. (1962)
    • Volume 3: Diaries, Dreams and Letters. With the help of Paul Raabe and Erwin Loewenson . (1960)
    • Volume 4 (announced as Volume 6): Georg Heym. Documents about his life. With Gerhard Burkhardt with the participation of Uwe Wandrey and Dieter Marquardt. Ellermann, Hamburg 1960–1968; DNB 366187619
  • Karl Ludwig Schneider (Ed.): Seals and writings . Beck, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-406-08550-4
  • The work. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-86150-736-6 .

Single issues

  • Poems . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1999 (Suhrkamp Library), ISBN 3-518-01179-0 .
  • The thief. A book of novels. Martus, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-928606-18-2 .
  • Georg Heym: Umbra Vitae . Postponed poems, Reclam Stuttgart 2009; With 47 original woodcuts by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , reprint of the edition by Kurt Wolff Verlag, Munich 1924. With contributions by Anita Beloubek-Hammer and Gunter Martens

literature

  • Gunnar Decker : Georg Heym. "Me, a torn sea" . Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-942476-18-8 .
  • Helmut Greulich: Georg Heym. Life and work. A contribution to the early history of German Expressionism . Ebering Verlag, Berlin 1931.
  • Ingrid Heep: The prose of Georg Heyms. A style and form analysis . Dissertation . Philipps University, Marburg / Lahn 1968.
  • Leonhard Kühschelm: The picture in the poetry of Georg Heyms. Dissertation University of Vienna, Vienna 1969.
  • Kurt Mautz : Georg Heym. Mythology and Society in Expressionism . Athenaeum, Frankfurt 1987, ISBN 3-610-08929-6 .
  • Nina Schneider: Georg Heym. The shoulders of the cities crack. Images, texts, documents. Arche, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-7160-2061-3 .
  • Nina Schneider: Georg Heym 1887–1912 . Exhibition catalog 35 of the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin (exhibition from September 15 to November 5, 1988). Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 1988, ISBN 3-88226-446-2 .
  • Hermann Weber: Georg Heym - poet of expressionism and lawyer against his will . (= Humaniora Medicine - Law - History). Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-540-28439-7 , pp. 531-551.
  • Georg Heym: Ophelia. In: Harald Hartung (ed.): From naturalism to the middle of the 20th century. Volume 5, Reclam, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-15-007894-6 , pp. 126-127.
  • Walter Hinck: figure of integration of human suffering. To Georg Heyms Ophelia. In: Harald Hartung (ed.): From naturalism to the middle of the 20th century. Volume 5, Reclam, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-15-007894-6 , pp. 128-137.
  • Hartmut Vollmer: Georg Heym. In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. Volume 7, 3rd edition. JB Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 , pp. 454-455.
  • Hans Peter Buohler: Georg Heym. In: Killy Literature Lexicon. Authors and works from the German-speaking cultural area. Lim. by Walther Killy , ed. by Wilhelm Kühlmann (among others). Second, completely revised. Edition. Volume 5. De Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-021391-1 , pp. 396-399.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ KL Schneider: GH-GA (G.Heym-Ges.Ausg. ) Volume 6/4, p. 627.
  2. ^ KL Schneider: GH-GA. Volume 6/4, p. 91.
  3. ↑ a b Peter Schünemann: Georg Heym. 1986, ISBN 3-406-31609-3 , pp. 19-25.
  4. ^ Reports of the Corps Brothers; in: Schneider / Burckhardt (ed.): Documents. Pp. 50 f., 56, 59
  5. ↑ For this information on the course of the school career and studies cf. KL Schneider: GH-GA. Volume 6/4, pp. 627-631.
  6. ^ KL Schneider: GH-GA. Volume 3, p. 152. There are further entries in which he expresses himself similarly on the subject.
  7. ↑ For this information cf. KL Schneider: GH-GA. Volume 6/4, pp. 632-635.
  8. ^ KL Schneider: GH-GA. Volume 6/4, p. 394.
  9. ^ KL Schneider: GH-GA. Volume 6/4, p. 635
    Renz, in: Schneider / Burckhardt (Ed.): Documents. P. 455 ff.
    Seelig, Living and Dying. P. 235 f.
  10. ^ Zeittafel, in: Georg Heym 1887–1912, exhibition catalog, p. 13.
  11. ↑ See Oliver Ohmann: KEITAI - grave of the poet Georg Heym redesigned. In: Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. 3/2009, p. 247 f.
  12. ↑ cf. Diary entry from May 2, 1907: KL Schneider: GH-GA , Volume 6/4, p. 86.
  13. ↑ Diary entry of October 21, 1907: KL Schneider: GH-GA , Volume 3, p. 99.
  14. ↑ Peter Schünemann: Georg Heym. 1986, ISBN 3-406-31609-3 , pp. 22-37.
  15. ^ KL Schneider: GH-GA. Volume 6/4, p. 634.
  16. ↑ The god of the city - Georg Heym. Retrieved February 21, 2020 .
  17. ↑ obtained from David Baumgardt , Erwin Loewenson , Simon Guttmann , Jakob van Hoddis and Robert Jentzsch , renouncing the nomination of an editor by the publisher Ernst Rowohlt , who had initially planned the psychiatrist Arthur Kronfeld for this - after KL Schneider and G. Burckhardt (ed .): Georg Heym - documents on his life and work. Ellermann, Hamburg 1968, p. 483.
personal data
SURNAME Heym, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heym, Georg Theodor Franz Artur (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, representative of early expressionism
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Hirschberg , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1912
Place of death Berlin