Kurt Adel

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Kurt Adel (born May 21, 1920 in Vienna ; † December 19, 2009 there ) was an Austrian literary and linguist. Adel was not only a connoisseur of German and world literature, he also documented the identity and character of Austrian literature and language in numerous publications that he wrote in addition to his work as a high school teacher for German and English (1946–1985).

Life

Kurt Adel was born on May 21, 1920 as the only child of the post office clerk (Reg.Rat) Emil Adel and his wife Antonia (née Kühnl) and grandson of a Jewish grave digger. He graduated from high school at Rainergasse 39, which later became his place of work. In 1940 he was expelled from the university because of the Nuremberg race laws and had to rely on self-study from books. In addition to work and harvest services and as a wage calculator for the Porr construction company, he wrote his own dissertation “The Icelandic saga and contemporary German poetry” during the war years. As soon as it was possible after the end of the war, Adel completed the rigorous and teacher training courses for German and English within fourteen days.

Since there were no full university professors for German studies in Vienna at that time who would not have been politically burdened, special permission was needed to be able to submit a habilitation thesis to a professor. A work on Johann Karl Wezel was rejected several times.

Adel, who had a perfect command of the Latin language and conversed in it on occasion, endeavored to gain a comprehensive and precise knowledge of the Jesuit dramas, most of which are only available in manuscripts; his work on “The Jesuit Drama in Austria” is the result of meticulous study of the 42 dramas by Johann Baptist Adolph , but also the plays by Nicolaus von Avancini , Jacob Balde , Jakob Bidermann , Crucius, Andreas Gryphius and Simon Rettenpacher . However, the occupation also led to the twice as extensive work on "The Viennese Jesuit Theater and European Baroque Drama" (1960); the essay “The end and aftermath of the Baroque”, published in 1957, is a summary of lectures at the “Vienna Catholic Academy”.

His editorial and literary-historical work also extended to the time of humanism and the Renaissance . For the Stiasny-Verlag he produced editions of Conrad Celtis , Enea Silvio Piccolomini and Paracelsus , and in 1966 Teubner published an edition of Celtis' Viennese works.

After all, Adel worked intensively with fist material for many years ; In addition to twelve other works, the most extensive and most important is the one on the Faust poetry in Austria (Vienna 1971).

Adel, for whom it was always a concern to occupy a special position for Austria within the German-language literatures, was already over seventy years old, familiarizing himself with the new medium of the computer in order to use mathematical statistics to prove that Austrian German is not only in the vocabulary , but also differs from Binnendeutsch in syntax; that is the subject of his "Deep Structures of Language" published in 1994.

The literary historian reached the limits of what could just be represented with his “Literature of Austria at the turn of the millennium”. The author, who, if necessary, was able to carefully read up to a thousand pages a day in the quiet of his study, gives with this summary a testimony to his hard work and dedication to his subject. The first Austrian literary history of the Second Republic, even before Schmidt-Dengler's “Bruchlinien”, incorporating the roots that he knows thoroughly, is his introduction “Aufbruch und Tradition”, which draws the connecting lines across the catastrophe of Nazism. Beyond the abbreviations of a literary canon, which only the greats have their say, it is an aspect of Adel's life's work to also perceive the quieter voices of Austrian national literature and to demand respect for them.

Kurt Adel was married to Marie Hilscher and a father of four. He found it difficult to cope with the mountain death of his eldest son in 1976. - Consolidated above all by the experiences he had with contempt for human beings and opportunism during the time of National Socialism, he had an absolutely confident demeanor towards authorities. In science and school, but also with regard to the church, to which he belonged as a devout Catholic, he did not shy away from denouncing injustices and abuse of office and proceeding with great moral courage against those affected. So he filed a complaint against the rain of the Vienna seminary, whose replacement he enforced, he also obtained the removal of a teacher colleague who abused the class for Nazi indoctrination. The return of the medal he had been awarded was without precedent.

Aristocrats were buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Awards

Works

  • The universality of the poetic word. Vienna 1957.
  • The Viennese Jesuit Theater and European Baroque Drama. Vienna 1960.
  • Enea Silvio Piccolimini. Stasny Publishing House. Vienna 1962
  • On the essence of Austrian poetry. Vienna 1964.
  • Mind and reality. On the development of Austrian poetry. Vienna 1967.
  • Johann Karl Wezel. A contribution to the intellectual history of the Goethe era. Vienna 1968.
  • The Faust seal in Austria. Vienna 1971.
  • Greetings and thanks to Johannes Lindner. Klagenfurt 1977.
  • New beginnings and tradition. Introduction to Austrian literature since 1945. Vienna 1982.
  • The literature of the GDR - a winter fairy tale? Vienna: Braumüller 1992.
  • Deep structures of language. Investigation of regional differences with statistical methods. (together with R. Dutter, H. Filzmoser, P. Filzmoser). Vienna: WUV-Univ.-Verl. 1994
  • The literature of Austria at the turn of the millennium. Frankfurt / M., Vienna: Lang 2nd revised. u. supplementary edition 2003 (2001)
  • Of language and poetry. 1800-2000. Frankfurt / M., Vienna: Lang 2004. [Contains: “The work of art is freye's play of the mind with the world in relation to the holiest” - Franz Grillparzer's dramatic work or: Die Heimkehr - Grillparzer's heroic drama (and Kleist's Penthesilea) - a source from Stifter's "post-summer"? - Heinrich Suso Waldeck - Franz Werfel - Werner Bergengruen - Late Crown - Janus - Greetings and thanks to Johannes Lindner - Thoughts on the poem "Final Word" - Reinhold Schneider and Franziskus - Christine Busta, poetry - Herbert Hinterleithner - Heinz Pototschnig and "Der Bogen "- The Brenner - The Well of Memory.]
  • Franz Xaver Kappus (1883–1966). Austrian officer and German writer. Frankfurt / M., Vienna: Lang 2006

literature

  • Bio-Bibliographic Literature Lexicon of Austria. Edited by Hans Giebisch and Gustav Gugitz. Vienna 2nd edition 1985 (1964), p. 2
  • Who is who in Austria. 9th edition 1990/91
  • Viktor Suchy: The herald of Austria's literature. Kurt Adel on his 70th birthday. (With a list of Kurt Adel's writings). In: Yearbook of the Grillparzer Society, 3rd episode, vol. 17 (1987-90), Vienna: Hora-Verlag 1991, pp. 211-224.
  • Elisabeth Horvath: Order and title in Austria. Vienna 2004, p. 93 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Aristocracy, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aristocracy, Kurt Franz Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian literary and linguist
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 2009
Place of death Vienna