Heinrich Straumann

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Heinrich Straumann, 1951

Heinrich Straumann (born September 22, 1902 in Bellinzona , † February 26, 1991 in Zollikon ) was a Swiss English graduate and university professor. He was a professor of English language and literature at the University of Zurich .

Life

Heinrich Straumann, the son of a mechanical engineer, graduated from the Zurich Cantonal School , studied German, English and musicology at the Universities of Zurich, Berlin and Aberdeen between 1921 and 1927 and did his doctorate at the University of Zurich under Emil Ermatinger . Straumann then taught for a year at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz and from 1928 to 1938 at the Aarau Cantonal School . In 1933 he qualified as a professor for English philology at the University of Zurich. His post-doctoral thesis "Newspaper headlines", for which he researched for a few months in London in 1931, is considered a pioneering work in linguistics. Straumann was appointed full professor of English language and literature at the University of Zurich in 1938, as the successor to his prematurely deceased teacher Bernhard Fehr .

In 1949, as dean of the philological faculty, he succeeded in creating the Zurich chair for the composer Paul Hindemith and, after his death, was a member of the first board of trustees of the Hindemith Foundation. From 1960 to 1962 he was rector and from 1955 to 1963 a member of the Education Council of the Canton of Zurich. After staying in the USA in 1937 and 1947, he was one of the pioneers of American studies in Europe and initiated the founding of the Zurich North American Library in 1970. His book American Literature in the Twentieth Century was published in several editions and has also been translated into Spanish, Italian and Japanese.

Straumann also placed great emphasis on direct contact with prominent English-speaking writers of several generations, from John Galsworthy to William Golding , with whom he was good friends. On January 15, 1941, in Zurich-Fluntern, he gave the funeral oration for James Joyce , whom he had met personally shortly before.

From 1942 to 1946 he was President of the Zurich PEN Club and in 1946 he founded the Swiss-British Society.

Fonts (selection)

  • Justinus Kerner and Occultism in German Romanticism. Verlag der Münster-Presse, Horgen 1928 (dissertation).
  • Newspaper headlines. A study in linguistic method. Allen & Unwin, London 1935 (habilitation).
  • American literature in the twentieth century. Hutchinson's University Library, London 1951.
  • Phoenix and dove. On the interpretation of Shakespeare's mind. Artemis, Zurich 1953.
  • The quarrel about Cozzens or the vagaries of book reviewing (= English studies. 40). Z. Niehans, Amsterdam 1959.
  • William Faulkner , Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1968.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matriculation edition of the University of Zurich. Retrieved December 19, 2018 .
  2. ↑ document: Government Decision 1938/2411. State Archives of the Canton of Zurich . 09/22/1938. Signature: MM 3.57 RRB 1938/2411. Link .
  3. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 28, 1991, p. 27.
  4. ^ Official website of the Paul Hindemith Foundation. Retrieved February 7, 2019 .
  5. ^ Ernst Leisi : Obituary Heinrich Straumann. (PDF; 8.7 MB) In: Annual Report of the University of Zurich 1990/1991. Pp. 151–152 , accessed in 2018 .
  6. ^ English Studies , Swets & Zeitlinger BV Lisse, Vol. 72, No. 3, 1991, pp. 284–285.
  7. ^ John Carey: William Golding: the man who wrote Lord of the Flies , Faber & Faber, London 2009, pp. 342, 402.
  8. ↑ C. Giedion-Welcker (ed.): In Memoriam James Joyce , Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich 1941, reprint 1979, pp. 7–9.
  9. ↑ D. Bores, S. Hanuschek (ed.): Manual PEN: History and presence of the German-speaking centers. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, p. 574.
personal data
SURNAME Straumann, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss English and German studies
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Bellinzona
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1991
Place of death Zollikon