Konrad Alberti

This article describes the German writer. For the major general see Konrad von Alberti .

Ismael Gentz : Konrad Alberti (1891)

Konrad Alberti or Conrad Alberti (born July 9, 1862 in Breslau ; † June 24, 1918 in Berlin ; born as Conrad Sittenfeld ) was a German writer , biographer , literary historian and editor-in-chief of the Berliner Morgenpost .

Life and work

Alberti attended the Friedrichsgymnasium in his native city of Breslau. He then began studying literary and art history at the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelms University . After completing his studies, he traveled around as an actor with touring stages, he was also active as a freelance writer and worked for the Berliner Morgenpost around the turn of the century . Alberti caused a sensation primarily as an advocate of naturalism ; in the last decades of the 19th century, among other things, he published polemics that were primarily directed against classics and contemporary theater and gave excellent provisions for naturalistic theorizing and aesthetic theorizing. Alberti's literary work began around 1884 when "Herr L'Arronge and the German Theater" appeared. In 1885 and 1886 he published his biographies on Bettina von Arnim , Gustav Freytag and Ludwig Börne , a biographical-literary study to celebrate his centenary. From 1886 Konrad Alberti began to publish various novels that deal critically with social grievances. In 1887 Alberti published "Plebs: Novellen aus dem Volke". Among other things, “Who is the stronger” appeared in 1888, which belongs to the six-part series of novels “Der Kampf ums Dasein” (1888–1895). This series of novels is the author's main work. In the same year his drama “Bread! A social drama in five acts ”. In 1889 he developed a line of exemplary historical processes for the present in order to integrate the naturalistic movement, which rejected historical material, into history. Historically, he spanned an arc from the Gracchen to Thomas Müntzer to the French Revolution . 1890 Alberti, together with Wilhelm Walloth and other writers in Leipzig Realist process for immorality indicted. His condemnation drew the public's attention to his writing. In 1898 Alberti was appointed editor-in-chief of the Berliner Morgenpost. In the same year his popular scientific treatise on the history of progress “The Path of Mankind” and the drama “Im Suff”, a naturalistic hospital catastrophe in two processes and one follow-up, appeared. A year later, “Bei Freund und Feind” was published. In 1911 one of the writer's last works was released, “Ablösung VOR!”.

Female bourgeoisie

The role of women is an often addressed topic in Alberti's works, so for him the bad influence of the women of the bourgeoisie is particularly responsible for the literary decline. In this context, he primarily criticizes the lack of education in the so-called daughter school and therefore advocates vocational training and university access for women. He also criticizes above all the “unrealistic pastime” and the idleness of everyday life of many wealthy bourgeois wives . Alberti symbolizes the “triviality” of “women's literature” with the term “fashion” and criticizes the seeming bourgeois morality, which is contradicting the frivolity of reading by bourgeois women. His criticism relates primarily to the works of Lindau and Heyses and above all to the "dirty Parisian novels". Similar to Paul Ernst , Alberti denounces the bourgeois wife primarily because of their luxurious and immoral lifestyle and because of their decadence . In addition, he declares flatness, indolence and conventionalism to be the increasing "diseases of women". According to Alberti, the feminine stands with the “sick”, “frivolous”, “artificial” and “French” in absolute contrast to the “healthy”, “moral”, “natural” and “Germanic”. Above all, the bourgeois women's movement is a reason for Alberti's criticism of the bourgeois wives of his time. In this context, Alberti also criticizes Ibsen's work “Nora”, which in his opinion represents the “consequences of the dull upbringing of women”. Alberti sees realism as a suitable remedy for bourgeois women , so he supports its aesthetic and ideological concept and hopes that the misunderstood legal emancipation of women will be banished . In Die Bourgeoisie und die Kunst , he primarily takes a critical look at fashion, which in his view reduces bourgeois art enormously to the outside world. In his Twelve Articles of Realism , published in 1889 , he tried to differentiate realism from conventional literature. He speaks out negatively against the eroticization of the pathological and against the feminist ritual of applying make-up as “falsehood” and “stenciledness” and thus denounces the illusory nature of this time. His criticism of fashion literature also symbolizes his criticism of the feminist fashion cult. The bourgeois double standard criticized by him symbolizes the wrong morality of wives and daughters. As an opponent of bourgeois luxury and hedonism , Alberti appears the committed bourgeois wife. Ultimately, Alberti emphasizes that the bourgeois readership is preferably female and as a result has succumbed to the so-called “women's cult”, which Alberti sees as a great danger to the position of literature in realism.

Works

Critical Writings

• 1884: "Herr L'Arronge and the German Theater"
• 1884: "Gustav Freytag, his life and work"
• 1885: »Bettina von Arnim«
• 1886: "Ludwig Börne"
• 1887: »Without make-up. Truths About Modern Theater "
• 1888: "What does German art expect from Wilhelm II?"
• 1888: "The Bourgeoisie and Art"
• 1889: "Modern Realism in German Literature"
• 1889: "The twelve articles of realism"
• 1890: "Nature and Art"
• 1891: "With friend and foe"
• 1893: "Coarse wedges on coarse blocks" (epigrams)

Short stories and novels

• 1887: "Giants and Dwarfs"
• 1887: "Plebs"

The series of novels: "Who is the Stronger", "The Old and the Young", "The Right to Love", "Fashion", "Schröter u. Comp. «,» Machines «united under the title:» The Struggle for Dasein «(1888–1895, 6 parts)

• 1890: "Federspiel"
• 1895: "Traveling Woman"
• 1896: "The Rose of Hildesheim"
• 1899: "The beautiful Theotaki"
• 1906: "The Way of Mankind"

Dramas

• 1888: "Bread!", Revised under the title "Thomas Münzer" (1902)
• 1890: "I'm drunk!"
• 1893: "A Prejudice"
• 1895: "The golden cage"
• 1905: "The own stove"

Comedies

• 1893: "Bluff"
• 1894: "The French woman"
• A manual: "The Orator's School" (1890)

Others

• 1909: »The conquest of the earth. The white man as a discoverer, researcher and colonizer of foreign continents. Classical accounts, collected by Conrad Alberti-Sittenfeld «. Ullstein Verlag , Berlin Vienna.

Quotes

"A good book never comes into the hands of a Berlin lady, the flattest whiskey of a Lindau, the perfumed sweets of a Heyse are their usual spiritual nourishment, next to the Berlin gossip papers."

- Alberti

"Flatness, indolence, conventionalism are the social illnesses from which our ladies suffer, who raise their excessive vanity, their amusement madness."

- Alberti

literature

• Norbert Bachleitner: The English and French social novel of the 19th century and its reception in Germany. Rodopi, Amsterdam 1993, p. 587.
• Susanne Balhar: The fateful drama in the 19th century. Variations of a romantic model. Meidenbauer, Munich 2004, p. 381.
• Urszula Bonter: The novel by Paul Heyse. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2008, p. 133.
• Helmut de Boor, Richard Newald: History of German literature from the beginnings to the present. Vol. I-XII Beck Verlag, Munich 1990, p. 380.
• Jutta Bucquet-Radczewski: The neo-classical tragedy with Paul Ernst (1900-1910). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1993, p. 19.
• Paul Fechter:  Alberti, Conrad. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 141 ( digitized version ).
• Andrea Geier, Ursula Kocher: Against women. On the history and function of misogynist speech. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2008, p. 83.
• Urte Helduser: Gender Programs . Concepts of literary modernity around 1900. Böhlau, Cologne 2005, p. 104.
• Günter Helmes : Literature and censorship at the beginning of the "modern age". The Leipzig "Realist Trial" 1890 . In: Helga Andresen , Matthias Bauer (Hrsg.): Sprachkultur. Carl Böschen Verlag, Siegen 2009, pp. 171–179. ISBN 978-3-932212-75-8 .
• Alberti, Konrad. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 1: A-Benc. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-598-22681-0 , pp. 105-111.
• Hartmut Kircher, Maria Klánska, Erich Kleinschmidt : Avant-garde in East and West. Literature, music, fine arts around 1900. Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar and Vienna 2002, p. 16.
• Christoph Kockerbeck: The beauty of the living. Aesthetic perception of nature in the 19th century. Böhlau, Vienna, Cologne and Weimar 1997, p. 9.
• Gerhard Rupp: Classics of German Literature. Epoch signatures from the Enlightenment to the present. Würzburg 1999, p. 154.
• Eva Maria Siegel: High Fidelity: Configurations of Loyalty around 1900. Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2004, p. 166.
• Ingo Stöckmann: The will to will. Naturalism and the founding of literary modernism, 1880-1900. de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, p. 70.

Web links

Wikisource: Konrad Alberti  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Konrad Alberti in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Konrad Alberti at Open Library
• Works by Konrad Alberti at Zeno.org .