Literary man

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A writer is - in contrast to the poets , poet or author - an intellectual , traffic forming in a scene writer writer . The term has been used since the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Concept history

On the one hand, it is a positive or an elitist category, since the writer “does not allow himself to be guided by any other considerations than dependence on literature”. The word describes “the lover and his pure enjoyment of literature.” On the other hand, the writer is situated in an egalitarian radius of action among critics , academics , journalists , in short: professional colleagues . In this respect, the word, "used disparagingly, [...] denotes the springy, professional activity, along with the chatter and the hustle and bustle associated with it." The word "writer" had correspondingly negative, culture-critical associations early on - circulated in conservative bourgeois circles In the 1920s , for example, the derogatory word “ asphalt literary ” for authors in Berlin, Vienna, London and New York who took up 'street issues', opened their work to journalism, the search for eternal values, so the criticism, in favor of short-term fashionable ones , despised modern literature. The “real writer” is said “to overestimate the range of literary events and to believe that the street is in the shops that are done in the coffeehouse or in the goods displayed in the window of the bookstore involved in the innermost. ” Used in this way or similar pejoratively ,“ literary man ”stands in opposition to the high-value terms“ poet ”,“ poet ”or“ author ”.

"Literature" is now also sometimes used simply for a person who reads, writes, ponders, speaks about, promotes, etc. literature, etc.

Usage in the Baltic States

In the Baltic States, "man of letters" has been the term for all academically educated people since the 18th century .; It was customary to speak of the "literary class" as a distinction to knighthood.

Other meanings

The "man of letters" in a Rhenish carnival association is entrusted with the task of selecting or proposing the artists who appear at the meetings and balls of a session , knowing their planned performances and, if necessary, agreeing the time and above all the content.

The term “literary form” or “literary style” (Japanese Bunjingi , 文人 木 ) refers to a variant of bonsai design in bonsai art .

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Literature  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Musil : Literature and literature. Aside from this (September 1931). In: Collected works in nine volumes. Edited by Adolf Frisé . Volume 8: Essays and Speeches. Rowohlt, Reinbek bH 1978, ISBN 3-499-30008-7 , pp. 1203-1225, here p. 1204.
  2. ^ Ernst Jünger : Author and authorship. In: Complete Works. 2nd department. Volume 13: Essays VII . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-12-904231-8 , pp. 389-519, here p. 466.
  3. ↑ Karl Kraus : A joker. In: Writings. Edited by Christian Wagenknecht. Vol. 20. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-37830-9 , pp. 89-92, here p. 92.
  4. ^ Entry in the Baltic Legal Dictionary of the Baltic Historical Commission
  5. ^ Wilhelm Lenz: The Baltic literary class . Marburg 1953