Helmut Schmiedt

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Helmut Schmiedt (born September 25, 1950 in Dortmund ) is a German literary scholar . He is best known as an expert on the life and work of Karl May . The professor at the University of Koblenz-Landau mainly deals with entertainment and contemporary literature , but also with the literature of the 18th century , including the time of Sturm und Drang .

Life

As a child, Helmut Schmiedt developed into an enthusiastic Karl May reader, whose works he could no longer let go and with which he has also dealt scientifically since the late 1970s. In 1977 he received his doctorate from Karl May. Studies on the life, work and impact of a successful writer at the University of Bonn as a Dr. phil. PhD . In 1984 he completed his habilitation there with the writing Regression as Utopia. Psychoanalytic investigation into the form of drama . After teaching at the Fernuniversität in Hagen in the 1980s, he received an extraordinary professorship at the University of Bonn in 1990 . In 1995 he accepted the chair for modern German literary studies at the University of Koblenz-Landau , where he was the managing director of the Institute for German Studies until his retirement.

Schmiedt has dealt with Karl May in numerous book and magazine publications and tested various literary methods on his work in order to arrive at increasingly differentiated interpretations. In addition to formal descriptions of May's narrative art, Schmiedt undertook investigations into the history of editions and motifs, pursued psychoanalytic and genre-typological approaches. He also maintains contact with the large fan base of the popular adventure writer through the Karl May Society , of which he is deputy chairman. He regularly publishes articles in the yearbook of the Karl May Society , of which he has been co-editor since 1993.

In contrast to many of his specialist colleagues, he also sees entertainment literature ("trivial literature") as a worthy field of research in literary studies and therefore explores the relationship between high-level literature and popular culture with great enthusiasm. The result is titles like Ringo in Weimar. Encounters between high literature and popular culture (1996). In Dr. Mabuse, Winnetou & Co .. Thirteen classics of German entertainment literature (2007) he deals with authors who are otherwise not in the focus of literary studies.

In addition, Schmiedt has also published numerous works on German-language literature since the 18th century, including studies on the drama and the literary epoch of the Enlightenment and its current Sturm und Drang . He dealt intensively with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther .

Helmut Schmiedt lives in Cologne .

Fonts

  • Karl May. Studies on the life, work and impact of a successful writer , dissertation, Bonn 1977 (as book as Volume 2 of the series Discourse , Königstein / Taunus 1979, ISBN 3-445-01916-9 ; later completely revised and supplemented; 3rd edition in the Athenäums Program series , Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-445-04774-X )
  • as editor: Karl May , Frankfurt am Main 1983 ( ISBN 3-518-38525-9 )
  • Popular culture in contemporary literature , course unit at the Fernuniversität Hagen, Hagen 1984
  • Literary Psychology , Volume 4 of Basic Knowledge of Literature , course unit of the Distance University of Hagen, Hagen 1984
  • The career of a greenhorn: Karl May, Winnetou I - III , course unit of the Hagen Open University, Hagen 1984
  • Dramas des Sturm und Drang , two course units from the Fernuniversität Hagen, Hagen 1985
  • The perpetrator as an investigator , Hagen 1986
  • Regression as utopia. Psychoanalytic investigation on the form of drama , habilitation thesis, Bonn 1984 (as a book under this title Würzburg 1987, ISBN 3-88479-274-1 )
  • Forms of social literature with Günter Wallraff , Max von der Grün and Heinrich Böll , double course unit of the Distance University Hagen, Hagen 1987
  • as editor: "How glad I am that I'm gone!" Goethe's novel 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' from a literary psychological perspective , Würzburg 1989 ( ISBN 3-88479-391-8 )
  • Love, marriage, adultery. A field of tension in German prose from Christian Fürchtegott Gellert to Elfriede Jelinek , Opladen 1993 ( ISBN 3-531-12389-0 )
  • Ringo in Weimar. Encounters between high literature and popular culture , Würzburg 1996 ( ISBN 3-8260-1124-4 )
  • as editor together with Annika Lorenz : Johann Wolfgang Goethe : The suffering of the young Werther. Synoptic print of the two versions 1774 and 1787 , Paderborn 1997 ( ISBN 3-89621-056-4 )
  • as editor together with Helmut J. Schneider: Enlightenment as Form. Contributions to a historical and current problem , Würzburg 1997 ( ISBN 3-8260-1380-8 )
  • as editor: Karl May: Am Tode , (reprint of the 1902 edition), Hamburg 1999
  • as editor: Bühnenschwänke , Würzburg 2000 ( ISBN 3-8260-1833-8 )
  • The writer Karl May. Contributions to work and effect , Husum 2000 ( ISBN 3-920421-79-5 )
  • Dr. Mabuse, Winnetou & Co. Thirteen classics of German entertainment literature , Bielefeld 2007 ( ISBN 978-3-89528-621-6 or ISBN 3-89528-621-4 )
  • Karl May or Die Macht der Phantasie , Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2011 ISBN 978-3-4066-2116-1

In addition, Helmut Schmiedt is also active as an author and co-editor of the yearbooks of the Karl May Society .

literature

  • Helmut Schmiedt , in: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 2003. 19th edition. Volume II: K - Scho. Bio-bibliographical directory of contemporary German-speaking scientists . KG Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-598-23607-7 , p. 2962

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schmiedt, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German literary scholar and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Dortmund