Gerhard Kaiser (Germanist, 1927)

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Gerhard Kaiser (2009)

Gerhard Kaiser (born September 2, 1927 in Tannroda near Weimar; † August 2, 2012 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German philologist and taught modern German literary history at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg in Freiburg im Breisgau from 1966 to 1990 .

Life

After training in theater and acting, Kaiser studied German, history and philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin from 1949 . In 1950 he left the GDR as a political refugee and completed his studies in Munich. He received his doctorate in history under Franz Schnabel in 1956 and then switched to German studies (habilitation in 1962 under Friedrich-Wilhelm Wentzlaff-Eggebert in Mainz ). In 1963 he received a professorship for modern German literary history in Saarbrücken and in 1966 accepted an offer to Freiburg im Breisgau at the Albert Ludwig University , where he stayed until 1990, when he took early retirement, despite numerous other appointments. In 2004/5 he held an endowed professorship in Basel .

Kaiser was a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, Dr. hc from the University of Liège and Dr. hc the Ev.-Theol. Faculty of the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen. In 2001 he received the Golden Goethe Medal from the Goethe Society Weimar.

Gerhard Kaiser died on August 2, 2012, shortly before the age of 85, after a long and serious illness.

power

The study of history and an early reception of Hegel and Marxism ( Georg Lukács ) sharpened Kaiser's attention to the historical and social embedding of literature. The school of interpretation ( Emil Staiger , Hugo Friedrich ) gave him the instruments for a meticulous handling of the literary text and let him gain the insight that poetry is not a reflection, but an individual answer to the historical situation. His doctorate as a historian focused on the radiation of Christianity in secular culture. Kaiser's goal as a literary scholar is to keep the eminent cultural significance of literature as a unique, highly complex medium of world penetration and interpretation alive in the consciousness of our time. This is attempted both in fundamental considerations (why still literature? 1996) as in haunting individual interpretations as well as in historical representations that understand literary epochs as tense constellations of works and authors in their reference to time. Kaiser clarified and enriched his point of view in an intensive literary theoretical discussion with psychoanalysis , critical theory , post-structuralism and, most recently, the cultural-scientific turn in literary studies. From his question about the function and transformation of Christian ideas, motifs, images and structures, especially in non-Christian literature, the opposite question finally emerged: What does the literary, essentially narrative representation of the Bible achieve theologically? Kaiser's investigation of how the Christ word “The truth will set you free” (Joh 8,32) could become the motto of the university of Freiburg, which is decidedly liberal in science, leads to a theoretical discussion of whether and how a Christian can be a modern scientist .

Works

  • Pietism and Patriotism in Literary Germany: A Contribution to the Problem of Secularization , Wiesbaden 1961. 2nd additional edition Frankfurt 1973 (Diss. 1956)
  • Klopstock: Religion and Poetry , Gütersloh 1963 (Studies on Religion, History and Spiritual Science 1). - Extended version of the habilitation paper - 2., durchges. Edition Kronberg / Ts. 1975
  • History of German literature from the Enlightenment to the Sturm und Drang: 1730–1785 . Gütersloh 1966 (single volume from: History of German Literature. Ed. H. Rüdiger.). - 2nd, adult and completely revised Aufl. As clarification. Sensitivity. Sturm und Drang . Munich 1976 (= History of German Literature / Ed. By Gerhard Kaiser. Vol. 3. [UTB; 484]). - 3rd, revised. Edition Munich 1979. - 4th edition Tübingen and Basel 1991. - 5th edition Tübingen and Basel 1996. - 7th edition 2007
  • Idolatry and death. The thematic unity of Schiller's work , Stuttgart 1967 (= poetry and knowledge 3)
  • The Dramas of Andreas Gryphius. A collection of individual interpretations , ed. by Gerhard Kaiser, Stuttgart 1968 (own contributions to: Leo Armenius, Peter Squentz, Horribilicribrifax, Verliebtes Gespenste and Beloved Dornrose)
  • Günter Grass: Katz and Maus , Munich 1971.
  • Antitheses: Interim assessment of a Germanist 1970–1972 , Frankfurt 1973
  • Benjamin. Adorno: Two studies , Frankfurt 1974
  • New antitheses by a Germanist 1974–1975 , Kronberg / Ts .: Scriptor 1976
  • Wanderer and idyll: Goethe and the phenomenology of nature in German poetry from Geßner to Gottfried Keller . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1977
  • From Arcadia to Elysium: Schiller Studies , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1978
  • (With Friedrich A. Kittler :) Poetry as a socialization game: Studies on Goethe and Gottfried Keller , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1978
  • Reading pictures: Studies on literature and fine arts , Munich: Fink 1981
  • Gottfried Keller: Das Gedichte Leben , Frankfurt: Insel 1981
  • Gottfried Keller: The epitome. Novellas . With illustrations, ed. and with an afterword by Gerhard Kaiser, Frankfurt 1982
  • Gottfried Keller: Clothes make the man , ed. by Gerhard Kaiser, Paderborn 1982
  • Gottfried Keller: An Introduction , Munich and Zurich 1985
  • Gottfried Keller: Complete Works , ed. by Thomas Böning and Gerhard Kaiser, 5 vols., Frankfurt 1985 ff.
  • Moments of German poetry : poems from Martin Luther to Paul Celan interpreted by Gerhard Kaiser, Frankfurt: Insel, 1987. - 2nd edition 1987. - 3rd edition 1990. - 4th edition 1991
  • History of German lyric poetry from Goethe to Heine: a plan in interpretations . 3 parts. Frankfurt a. M. 1988, 1991 - New edition: History of German lyric poetry from Goethe to the present: A plan in interpretations, 3 vols. 2nd edition Frankfurt a. M .: Island 1996
  • Mother nature and the steam engine: A literary myth in reference to antiquity and Christianity , Freiburg i.Br .: Rombach 1991
  • Karl August Hanke; Gerhard Kaiser: Pictures at War - People at War . Sankt Gallen, Freiburg i.Br. 1994
  • Can man be saved? Vision and criticism of modernity in Goethe's "Faust" , Freiburg i.Br. 1994
  • Why more literature? On Poetry and Life , Munich: CH Beck 1996
  • Christ in the Mirror of Poetry: Exemplary Interpretations from the Baroque to the Present , Freiburg i. Br .: Herder 1997. - 2nd edition 1999
  • Christological References in Secular Literature: Some Examples from Goethe to Dürrenmatt . Stuttgart, Leipzig 1997 (= session reports of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Philological-historical class; vol. 135, booklet 3)
  • Speak that I see you: A Germanist as a contemporary witness , Stuttgart Munich 2000
  • Goethe - closeness through distance : lectures and studies. Jena, Weimar: VDG, 2000 (= cultural studies series of the Collegium Europaeum Jenense; 1). - 2nd edition 2001
  • Fathers and brothers. World order and socio-political order in Schiller's work , Stuttgart, Leipzig 2001 (= treatises of the philological-historical class of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Philological-historical class. Bd. 80. H. 2)
  • The truth will set you free: The Freiburg university motto - a word of faith as a provocation of science , lecture 2003 [1]
  • Together with Hans Peter Mathys: Das Buch Job: Dicht als Theologie , Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 2006 (= Biblical-Theological Studies; 81) - Republished by: Verlag der Weltreligionen 2010 - ISBN 978-3-458-72016-4 .
  • Resurrection: The Christ Trilogy by Patrick Roth - The murderer will be the redeemer , Tübingen, Basel: A. Francke 2008 - ISBN 978-3-7720-8267-2
  • Late harvest. Contributions to theology, literary studies and intellectual history , Tübingen, Basel: A. Francke 2008 (500 pages) - ISBN 978-3-7720-8276-4
  • Christianity's claim to truth . Two essays, Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag 2009 - ISBN 978-3-7720-8350-1
  • Tolerance. The historical and current scope of an idea , in: Voices of the time 228 (2010), 541–555
  • "... wilder than anything ephemeral". Five essays on German-language works of contemporary literature. Daniel Kehlmann - Christian Lehnert - Adolf Muschg - Christoph Ransmayr - Patrick Roth (= Rombach Sciences - Litterae 181 series), Freiburg 2011 - ISBN 978-3-7930-9652-8
  • The incarnation of God in the Bible text . With an afterword by Karl Cardinal Lehmann, Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag 2011 - ISBN 978-3-7720-8412-6

literature

  • Gerhard Buhr; Friedrich A. Kittler; Horst Turk (ed.): The subject of poetry : Festschrift for Gerhard Kaiser. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1990.
  • Gerhard Neumann: The passion of objection and recognition - the Germanist Gerhard Kaiser . In: Gerhard Kaiser: Fitzcarraldo-Faust, Munich 1993, pp. 7–22.
  • Achim Aurnhammer: Gerhard Kaiser 70 years old. In: Freiburger Universitätsblätter 36, H. 138 (1997), pp. 140-141.
  • Hans-Jürgen Schings : Laudation (on the occasion of the award of a gold medal by the Goethe Society in Weimar on June 7, 2001) In: Goethe-Jahrbuch 117 (2001), pp. 450–451.
  • Patrick Bahners: Unexpected rereading . For the eightieth of the Germanist Gerhard Kaiser. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 1, 2007, p. 39.

Web links

Wikiquote: Gerhard Kaiser  - Quotes

Audio

  • Gerhard Kaiser: Enemy Brothers and Their Fathers, 1982: [2]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Achim Aurnhammer: The Freiburg Germanist Gerhard Kaiser is dead . In: Badische Zeitung of August 6, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Kaiser, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Germanist
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Tannroda
DATE OF DEATH 2nd August 2012
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau