Karl Stieler
Karl Stieler (born December 15, 1842 in Munich ; † April 12, 1885 ibid) was a German poet with a focus on Bavaria , who also worked as an archivist and lawyer . In addition to poems in Bavarian dialect and High German poetry, he also wrote travel and landscape descriptions, lectures on cultural history and political essays. Larger genres such as novel or drama , on the other hand, are absent from his work. As a supporter of progressive, national-liberal currents, he was also politically active. His sudden death at the age of only 42 preceded a - partly already planned - continuation of his work.
life and work
Stieler was born in Munich in 1842 as the eldest son of the Bavarian court painter Joseph Karl Stieler and his second wife, the poet Josephine von Miller . The strong, and apparently very lively boy, spent a happy childhood in Munich and in the family's summer house at Tegernsee . There he came into contact with forest workers and farmers whom he helped with their work. In addition to his power of observation, this direct participation is an important source of his portrayals of Bavaria.
From 1853 to 1861 he attended a class at the Ludwigsgymnasium in Munich , from which a number of other important scholars emerged, including his later biographer Karl Theodor von Heigel . The death of the sick father hit the sixteen-year-old high school student deeply and had a major impact on his further personal development: Karl Stieler himself stated that it had made him more serious and conscientious and that he had turned to his real goals and his true personality more seriously than before.
As a teenager he also wanted to become a painter , but believed that he was not gifted enough for the visual arts and finally found his form of expression in poetry through some quite talented sketches and attempts . However, here too he initially doubted whether his talent was strong enough to help realize his artistic inclination. Karl Stieler, like his father Joseph, was described by contemporaries as an honest, open-minded person to whom friendships and an intensive exchange of ideas were important. He later carried on the tradition of the Tegernsee Stielerhaus as a popular meeting place for artists and was also highly regarded as a fellow writer. Just as unmistakably, however, inner unrest and self-doubt ran through his life.
After successfully completing school, he began to study law at the Munich University in 1861, in the absence of any tangible alternatives, but at the same time attended lectures in history , art and philosophy .
Karl Stieler found ample inspiration from the professors at the university, but also from the literary and intellectual life of the state capital. Here he made the acquaintance of the art historian Wilhelm Riehl , who influenced his further work. The writers Paul Heyse and Emanuel Geibel introduced him to the artists' association Die Krokodile , whose ambitious program, which placed particular emphasis on linguistic beauty and form, he joined.
Franz von Kobell , his revered role model, whom he had read in childhood, inspired him to deal more with dialect poetry. Further suggestions for High German poetry came from Ludwig Uhland and Heinrich Heine , among others .
Karl Stieler's first dialect poems were received positively and already appeared in the Fliegende Blätter . In 1863 he made his first trip on foot from Lindau to Switzerland. Almost two years later his first collection of poems, Bergbleameln , appeared; others followed at intervals around 1870.
In 1866, probably out of disappointed love, he volunteered for the military and became a lieutenant for wartime without his unit intervening in the war. He kept a certain critical distance from the life of a soldier.
After passing the final exam, he became a legal intern at the regional court in Tegernsee in 1867 . Many of his poems in the field of law and politics are based on impressions from this period. In 1868 he passed the entrance exam for civil service and was briefly employed by a law firm . He then continued his studies at the University of Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate in 1869. He initially thought of an academic career, but then accepted a position at what was then the Bavarian Reichsarchiv in 1870 , which he held until his death.
During this time, Stieler also traveled several times: he visited the Paris World Exhibition in 1867 and was impressed by the élan of the cosmopolitan city, but also by the dignified bourgeois culture of France. His second long journey took him “through Austria to the north” - by ship on the Danube from Linz via Vienna to Budapest , from where he described mixed impressions tinged with the patriotism of the time: From a Bavarian distance, the later imperial capital Berlin appeared to him to be a “city of work ”that lacks wit ; from there he moved on to Hamburg and Heligoland . In 1870 he celebrated Easter in Rome , which deeply touched him as a traditional, ancient place of culture.
Karl Stieler's vivid, comprehensive descriptions while on the road, which increasingly also include larger contexts, made Karl Stieler a successful travel writer. He also held a number of successful lectures and became a mediator of Bavarian - occasionally foreign - culture and way of life in emerging Germany. Most of these articles first appeared in newspapers during his lifetime, with which he worked intensively.
In 1871 he married Mary, née Bischof, daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, whom he had met as a summer guest at Tegernsee. This marriage was evidently based on mutual affection, but at the same time it was founded on a difficult, initially fragile relationship: Mary Stieler seemed to have a hard time keeping up with her husband's artistic and intellectual activities and his - also erotic - emotional intensity, and at times became more childlike Role. The couple had three children. After the death of her husband, Mary married her brother-in-law Bernhard Seuffert in a second happy marriage.
When the Franco-Prussian War broke out , Karl Stieler became a staunch war veteran, accompanied a medical column to the theater of war and finally took part in the siege of Strasbourg . His posthumously published work Through War To Peace reflects this experience.
In the political environment of the emerging Germany, Stieler stood for a progressive liberalism, which accepted the technological-industrial innovations and the social challenges of the time, and understood tradition as the foundation and source of inspiration for further development.
He was enthusiastic about the idea of a united Germany , in which Bavaria should also be absorbed. He professed his support for democracy , but early on named characteristic weaknesses of the revolutionary new form of government at the time: In his dialect poetry, he primarily problematized the requirements of a truly independent political decision-making process or the process of fair elections . In essays, he also deliberately dealt with political issues, in particular the protection of the local forest as a common good. Around 1870 he also personally advocated what he called “freedom and enlightenment ” on the side of the liberals . His positions led to conflicts with more traditional circles in Bavaria, but also within his family.
In 1878 Karl Stieler fell seriously ill for the first time and feared for his life. During this time he was very successful, both professionally and as a writer. Most of his high German poems also fell into this last creative phase.
Around 1883 a love affair began with Sophie Kaulbach, the wife of the painter Hermann von Kaulbach , to whom he first had contact as a neighbor in Munich and at various social receptions of the Kaulbach family. This relationship also resulted in a detailed intellectual and poetic discussion. The very independent, respected woman, firmly rooted in the artistic milieu, and the popular writer, who felt so drawn to each other, seem to have complemented each other well in their personality. The illegitimate connection, however, led Karl Stieler in particular, who nonetheless loved his wife and family, into a great moral and emotional conflict. This relationship stayed with him until the end of his life. After his death, his wife and lover became reconciled.
In the winter of 1884/85 the poet wrote his lyrical autobiography with the winter idyll . This review of his life, which may have already arisen under the impression of his weakening strength, also turns particularly intensively to his family. Karl Stieler ultimately considered this work to be his most important. In the criticism, too, it met with great approval as an honest, soulful and well-designed narrative of his life.
In the early summer of 1885, Karl Stieler died in Munich as a result of an inadequately healed pneumonia : he did not want to be deterred by the illness from a trip to the Tegernsee and was buried there at his own request. So this place kept a special meaning for the local poet and the memory of him until the end. When he died, dialect poetry and two cultural-historical works were already in the planning stage, but they were not carried out.
Work, style and effect
In retrospect, the focus of Karl Stieler's literary work lies in dialect poetry and his lectures on Bavarian culture. His range of topics is comparatively limited: stories about life and the people in the country ( folklore ) are lined up - sometimes serious, soulful - love poetry and texts about the encounter of the "common people" with law and politics, with a humorous to caricaturing in general Tone prevails.
In contrast, his political engagement occupies a special position in the folk poetry of the time. There are no more extensive genres in Karl Stieler's work - perhaps he deliberately held back here.
From the point of view of contemporary literary criticism, the Allgemeine Deutsche Nationalbibliographie states that Karl Stieler always deserves full applause with regard to his subjects and moral tendencies: free enjoyment of life in the mountains, happiness in love and patriotic enthusiasm "are the recurring motifs of his poetry" that persist distinguish a “clean” formal design.
From today's point of view, his close ties to the country and its people are essential for his literary work, which is often taken up as an authentic link to tradition . His work on cultural history in particular is recognized as having documentary value because of its clear, precise and comprehensive description, which takes into account different perspectives “from the people”. As with all historical sources , of course, the personal position of the author involved in the event must be viewed critically.
The objection to Karl Stieler's dialect poetry is occasionally that it only uses the dialect superficially in order to reflect the point of view of the poet - and not of those whose everyday life shapes the dialect - and that he does not always use it consistently. Some of his dialect poems were already too crude for contemporary criticism.
His High German lyrics are accused of being overly romanticized and of dealing with historical elements in a questionable manner. The winter idyll is expressly excluded from this.
Today in Tegernsee a memorial on the Leeberghang - the so-called literary hill - and, last but not least, the Stielerhaus as a memorial and cultural site, remember the poet. In several German cities and towns there are Stielerstraße z. B. in Munich and Nuremberg.
Works (selection)
- Bergbleamln (1865)
- From German Mountains (1872)
- Italy. A hike from the Alps to the Aetna in descriptions. (1875)
- Weidmann's memories (1875)
- Rhine trip. From the sources of the Rhine to the sea. (1876)
- Because I'm happy! (1876)
- Do you have a guts? (1877)
- To Sunnawend! (1878)
- Highland Songs (1879)
- New Highlands Songs (1881)
- Wanderzeit (1882)
- In the summer freshness' (1883)
- A wedding in the mountain '(1884)
- Cultural images from Bavaria (1885)
- Winter idyll (1885)
- From Foreign and Home (1886)
- Through War to Peace (1886)
- Images of nature and life from the Alps (1886)
- From Dahoam (1887)
- From the huts (1887)
- Travel Pictures from the Past (1889)
literature
- Günter Goepfert (ed.), Habt's a Schneid: Das Karl-Stieler-Hausbuch . Hugendubel, Munich, 1975, ISBN 3-7787-2065-1 .
- Rudolf Pikola, Franz Pikola (eds.), Karl Stieler: His time, his family, his work . Fuchs-Druck, Hausham, 1985 [without ISBN].
- Karl Theodor von Heigel, Karl Stieler: A contribution to his life story . With drawings by K.Th. Meyer. Büchner Verlag, Bamberg, 1890. Reprinted by Bertrams Print on Demand 2010, ISBN 1-148-43414-3 .
- Franz Muncker: Stieler, Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 196-201.
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl Stieler in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by Karl Stieler in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Selected poetry by Karl Stieler in the German Poetry Library
- University of Pennsylvania Library: Access to original works by Karl Stieler via the Online Books Page
- Love poetry: Selected love poems in High German by Karl Stieler
- Karl Stieler in the Bavarian literature portal (project of the Bavarian State Library )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stieler, Karl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German writer (Bavarian dialect poetry), archivist and lawyer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 15, 1842 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Munich |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 12, 1885 |
| Place of death | Munich |