Karl Gjellerup

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Gjellerup around 1890.
"Villa Baldur" in Dresden-Klotzsche, Goethestrasse 11
Karl Gjellerup's grave in the old cemetery in Dresden-Klotzsche, created by Woldemar Kandler

Karl Adolph Gjellerup (born June 2, 1857 in Roholte , Denmark; † October 11, 1919 in Klotzsche near Dresden, German Empire ) was a Danish writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature , who published his works mainly in German from the 1890s.

Life

The son of pastor Carl Adolph Gjellerup and his wife Anna Fibiger was born in Roholte ( Faxe Kommune , about 6 km southwest of Faxe Ladeplads ) in 1857 . The father died three years later, so that the mother and her son moved in the same year to her cousin, the writer and pastor Johannes Fibiger, in Copenhagen. Karl Gjellerup began to write while he was still at school, and shortly after graduating from school he wrote the pieces Scipio Africanus and Arminius . Karl Gjellerup was actually supposed to be a pastor like his father and completed a degree in theology in Copenhagen , which he graduated summa cum laude in 1878 . After graduation, he turned back to literature and published En idealist ( Eng . An idealist ) and Den evige Strid in November 1878 , both of which appeared on the same day under a pseudonym. The success of the two works soon brought Gjellerup together with artists of his time such as Georg Brandes , Holger Drachmann and Jens Peter Jacobsen . This was followed by other works such as Arvelighed og Moral (1881), Germanernes Lærling ( Eng . A disciple of the Teutons ; 1882) or Aander og Tider (1882), which dealt with Charles Darwin . An inheritance made it possible for Karl Gjellerup to tour Europe, and so he lived in Rome for several months in 1883 ; his way back took him through Switzerland, Greece, Russia and Germany. His notes on these trips, as well as the entire written estate of Gjellerup, are today kept by the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden and were partly published in the works En klassisk Maaned (1884) and Vandreaaret (1885).

His lyrical tragedy Brynhild (1884) was Karl Gjellerup's final literary breakthrough. He had dedicated it to his lover Eugenia Bendix (née Heusinger), a native of Dresden (previously the wife of Fritz Bendix ), whom he married on October 24, 1887. Karl Gjellerup lived in Dresden from 1885 to 1887 , and his largely biographical novel Minna (1889; German since I first saw her , 1918) is set mainly in Dresden and Rathen and is the little encrypted love story with Eugenie. In March 1892 he finally settled in Dresden. Gjellerup, who spoke German, English and French as well as Greek, published his works in Danish until the 1890s, before he switched to writing in German with his work Pastor Mors (1894) with the support of his wife. After 1898, most of his works were published in German; his models were not only Schiller , Goethe and Heine, but also Kant , Schopenhauer and Nietzsche .

Gjellerup went through an intensive Buddhist phase, of which his novel The Pilgrim Kamanita (1906) and the drama The Woman of the Perfected (1907) are important examples. The author connects Buddhism with the motif of romantic love, which is in contrast to the prevailing image of Buddhism in Europe at the time:

“Gjellerup's Buddhism knows a positive value in the worldly with the relationship between two people up to nirvana. The rebirths only take on a predominantly painful character immediately before the onset of redemption, which manifests itself in very subtle forms of the knowledge of non-duration. Before that, wandering through the worlds with all their madness and confusion as a great pilgrimage is not perceived pessimistically, but as a process of maturation. "

In 1917 Karl Gjellerup received the Nobel Prize for Literature together with his compatriot Henrik Pontoppidan . While Pontoppidan was honored for his work The Devil at the Cooker , Gjellerup was honored "for his versatile, rich poetry based on high ideals" . Because of the First World War , however, no ceremony took place, so Gjellerup received the award folder and medal in June 1918. For the prize money, he fulfilled a long-cherished dream and in September 1918 bought the “Villa Baldur” in the Dresden suburb of Klotzsche. Gjellerup died just a year later; he is buried in the old cemetery in Klotzsche.

In what is now Dresden's Klotzsche district, a Karl-Gjellerup-Strasse ( Lage ) laid out in 2004 was named after him.

Works

  • En idealist (1878) - German an idealist
  • Den evige Strid (1878)
  • Antigonos (1880)
  • Arvelighed and Moral (1881)
  • Rødtjørn (1881)
  • Aander and tider. Et Rekviem over Charles Darwin. (1882)
  • Germanernes Lærling (1882) - German a disciple of the Teutons
  • Romulus (1883)
  • G major (1883)
  • Brynhild (1884)
  • En Klassisk Maaned (1884)
  • Vandreaaret. Skildringer and Betragtninger. (1885)
  • Saint-Just (1885)
  • Thamyris (1887)
  • Helikon (1887)
  • En arkadisk legend (1887)
  • Hagbard and Signe (1888)
  • Minna (1889) - German since I first saw her (published 1918)
  • Min Kjærligheds bog (1889)
  • Herman Vandel (1891)
  • Richard Wagner i hans Hovedværk "Nibelungens Ring" (1890) - German Richard Wagner in his main works "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (1891 first German extended edition)
  • Rage horn. Sørgespil i fem handlinger (1893)
  • Kong Hjarne Skjald. Tragedie i fem handlinger (1893)
  • Pastor Mors. En underlig history (1894)
  • Hans Excellence. Skuespil indledet ved en Efterskrift til mine Dramer (1895)
  • Den ældre Eddas Gudesange (1895) - translation of the “Edda” into Danish
  • The hill mill. Novel in five books. (1896)
  • Ved grænsen (1897) - German at the border
  • Poison and modgift (1898)
  • Foolish Love (1898)
  • Tankelæserinden (1901)
  • The sacrificial fire. A piece of legend. (1903)
  • The pilgrim Kamanita. A novel of legends. (1906)
  • The woman of the perfect. A legendary drama. (1907)
  • The world wanderers. Novel poetry in three books. (1910)
  • Ripe for Life (1913)
  • The Friend of God (1916)
  • The golden branch. Seal and short story wreath from the time of Emperor Tiberius. (1917)
  • The most sacred animal. An Elysian book of fables. (1919)

literature

  • Karl Gjellerup, the poet and thinker. His life in self-testimonies and letters , 2 volumes. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1922.
  • Georg Nørregård: Karl Gjellerup - en biografi , CA Reitzel, Copenhagen 1988, ISBN 87-7421-613-9 .
  • Olaf C. Nybo: Karl Gjellerup - a literary border crosser of the fin-de-siècle . Dr. Kovač, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8300-0644-6 .
  • Heinz Weise (Ed.): "Since I first saw her": Narrated Dresden - On the 150th birthday of Nobel Prize winner for literature Karl Gjellerup . Publishing and Publishing House Dresden, Dresden 2006.

Web links

Commons : Karl Gjellerup  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Karl Gjellerup  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Volker Zotz : On the blissful islands. Buddhism in German culture . Berlin 200, pp. 249-250.
  2. ↑ Original text of the award document: "För hans mångsidigt rika och av Höga ideal burna diktning."
  3. ↑ See Andreas Fels: Slept brilliantly - after 8 a flea - bequeathed by the dog . In: Sächsische Zeitung , June 2, 2007.
  4. ^ Streets and squares in Klotzsche. In: Dresdner-Stadtteile.de. Retrieved May 13, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Gjellerup, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gjellerup, Karl Adolph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish writer and Nobel Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Rude
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1919
Place of death Klotzsche , German Empire