Peter Demetz (literary scholar)

Peter Demetz (born October 21, 1922 in Prague ) is an American Germanist of German-Czech-Jewish origin.

Life

The father Hans Demetz (1894–1983), whose Ladin family had moved from South Tyrol to Prague, was a dramaturge at the Deutsches Theater in Prague, theater director in Brno and Vienna and played an important role in Prague's literary circles in the interwar period. Peter Demetz's Jewish mother died in a concentration camp after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany , and Demetz himself had to do forced labor . After the war he studied at the Charles University in Prague German literature and a doctorate in 1948 for Dr. phil. In the same year he fled to the West after the communist coup . From 1950 to 1952 he worked as an editor at Radio Free Europe in Munich . In 1953 Demetz emigrated to the United States , of which he has been a citizen since 1958. He obtained in 1954 at Columbia University the title of Master of Arts , and in 1956 at the Yale University re-promotion to Ph. D. in 1956 Demetz was first lecturer at Yale University, 1958, assistant professor and in 1960 associate professor . In 1962 he was appointed full professor for German studies and comparative literature . From 1963 to 1969 Demetz was director of the German language and literature department at Yale, and from 1972 until his retirement in 1991 he held the sterling professorship for German language and literature at the same university .

Demetz has published books and essays on Theodor Fontane , the relationship between literature and politics, contemporary German literature and the culture and history of Prague and Bohemia , he has published works by German-Bohemian and Moravian writers and, in some cases together with his first wife, the writer Hanna Demetz (1928–1993), works by Czech authors translated into German. Along with Jiří Gruša , Peter Kosta , Eckhard Thiele and Hans Dieter Zimmermann, he was one of the five general editors of the 33-volume Czech Library , which was published by the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt from 1999 to 2007 . Since 1974 Demetz has also worked as a reviewer and author of the literary section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Demetz was also a member and temporarily chairman of the jury of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize from 1986 to 1996 . He is a member of the PEN Center Germany .

Honors, prizes and memberships (selection)

• 1971: Goethe Medal from the Goethe Institute , Munich
• 1977: Election as a corresponding member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry , Darmstadt
• 1982: Admission to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1984: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1994: Johann Heinrich Merck Prize of the German Academy for Language and Poetry, Darmstadt
• 2000: Medal of Merit of the Czech Republic
• 2004: European Culture Prize Pro Europa
• 2012: Georg Dehio Book Prize (main prize) of the German Cultural Forum for Eastern Europe , Potsdam
• 2014: Honorary doctorate in philology from Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic)

Works

Many of Demetz's books have also been published (sometimes first) in English or Czech.

• Goethe's "The Excited". On the question of political poetry in Germany. Nowack, Hann.-Münden 1952.
• René Rilke's Prague years. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1953.
• Marx , Engels and the Poets. For basic research on Marxism. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1959. Paperback edition: Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M. u. Berlin 1969.
• Forms of Realism: Theodor Fontane . Critical Investigations. Hanser, Munich 1964. Paperback edition: Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M., Berlin a. Vienna 1973. ISBN 3-548-12985-4 .
• The sweet anarchy. German literature since 1945. A critical introduction. Translated by the author from the American by Beate Paulus. Propylaea, Berlin, Frankfurt a. M. u. Vienna 1970. Revised paperback edition: Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M., Berlin a. Vienna 1973. ISBN 3-548-12985-4 .
• Fat years, lean years. German-language literature from 1965 to 1985. For the German edition edited u. translated by Christiane Spelsberg. Piper, Munich a. Zurich 1988. ISBN 3-492-03128-5 .
• Words in freedom. Italian futurism and the German literary avant-garde (1912–1934). With detailed documentation. Piper, Munich a. Zurich 1990. ISBN 3-492-11186-6 .
• Bohemian sun, Moravian moon. Essays and memories. Deuticke, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-216-30203-2 .
• Prague in black and gold. Seven moments in the life of a European city. From the American by Joachim Kalka . Piper, Munich a. Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-492-03542-6 . Paperback edition: Ibid. 2000, ISBN 3-492-23044-X .
• The Brescia Air Show. Kafka , d'Annunzio and the men who fell from heaven. Translated from the English by Andrea Marenzeller. Zsolnay, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-552-05199-6 .
• Bohemia bohemian. Essays. With a foreword by Karel Schwarzenberg . Zsolnay, Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-552-05373-1 .
• My Prague. Memories 1939 to 1945. Translated from the English by Barbara Schaden. Zsolnay, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-552-05407-3 .
• In the footsteps of Bernard Bolzano . Essays. Arco, Wuppertal u. Vienna 2013. ISBN 978-3-938375-49-5 .
• Dictators in the cinema. Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Goebbels, Stalin , Vienna (Paul-Zsolnay-Verlag) 2019. ISBN 3-552-05928-8 . ISBN 978-3-552-05928-3
• besides numerous articles, essays, articles and reviews.

Translations, editions

• Božena Němcová : The grandmother. A story from old Bohemia. Translation and epilogue by Hanna and Peter Demetz. Manesse, Zurich 1959. Paperback edition: Manesse and dtv, Zurich u. Munich 1995. ISBN 3-423-24048-2 .
• Jan Čep : Time and Return. Pictures from Bohemia and Moravia. Selected and translated from the Czech by Hanna and Peter Demetz. Herder, Freiburg i. Br., Basel u. Vienna 1962.
• František Halas : Poetry. Czech and German. Transmission and afterword by Peter Demetz. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1965.
• Lessing . Nathan the Wise . Full text. Documentation. Edited by Peter Demetz. Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M. u. Berlin 1966, (= Poetry and Reality, 25).
• Karl Gutzkow : Liberal Energy. A collection of his critical writings. Edited by Peter Demetz. Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M., Berlin a. Vienna 1974. ISBN 3-548-03033-5 .
• Old Prague stories. Collected by Peter Demetz. With illustrations by Hugo Steiner-Prag . Insel, Frankfurt a. M 1982. ISBN 3-458-32313-9 .
• HG Adler : Panorama. Novel in ten pictures. With an afterword by Peter Demetz. Piper, Munich a. Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-492-10891-1 .
• Stories from old Prague. Sippurim. Ed., With notes and an afterword by Peter Demetz. Insel, Frankfurt a. M. u. Leipzig 1994, ISBN 3-458-33219-7 .
• Lord God owes me a girl. Czech poetry of the 20th century. Edited and with an afterword by Ladislav Nezdařil and Peter Demetz. Piper, Munich a. Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-492-11667-1 .
• Johannes Urzidil : Prague Triptych. Stories. Edited and with an afterword by Peter Demetz. Residence, Salzburg a. Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7017-1082-1 .
• Karel Havliček : Polemical writings. Selected and with a foreword by Peter Demetz. Translated from the Czech by Minne Bley. With an afterword by Georg J. Morava. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart / Munich 2001, ISBN 3-421-05458-4 .
• Fin de siècle . Czech novellas and short stories. Ed. And with a foreword by Peter Demetz. Afterword by Marek Nekula. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-421-05251-4 .
• Jiří Orten : elegies / elegies. Czech German. Transferred and ed. by Peter Demetz. Arco, Wuppertal / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-938375-43-3 .
• Hans Werner Kolben : The heaviness will disappear. Poems from Prague and Theresienstadt. With an afterword ed. by Peter Demetz and with memories from Heinz Kolben of his brother. Arco, Wuppertal / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-938375-39-6 .

Editorships

• with Hans Dieter Zimmermann: Arsenal. Contributions to Franz Tumler . Piper, Munich / Zurich 1977, ISBN 3-492-02256-1 .
• with Joachim W. Storck and Hans Dieter Zimmermann: Rilke - a European poet from Prague. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-8260-1354-9 .

literature

• Festschrift: Traditions of Experiment from the Enlightenment to the Present. Essays in honor of Peter Demetz. Ed. V. Nancy Kaiser u. David E. Wellbery . Univ. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1992, ISBN 0-472-10309-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Peter Demetz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature and other media by and about Peter Demetz (literary scholar) in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Short biography and reviews of works by Peter Demetz at perlentaucher.de
• Article about Demetz in the exile archive of the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft
• Roman Kopřiva: Laudation for Peter Demetz on the occasion of the award of an honorary doctorate in philology at the Masaryk University Brno (November 26, 2014) including the acceptance speech by Demetz and a personal dedication from the recipient to the Austrian Library of Science, Brno wiko.phil.muni.cz
• Roman Kopřiva: Home and Exile: Peter Demetz on the Ninetieth. In: Der Ackermann. Bulletin of the Ackermann community , October - December 2012. Munich vol. 63, p. 4.
• Alan Levy : Peter Demetz in black and gold. In: The Prague Post , October 31, 2001
• Sabine Poláček: “My Prague has become alien to me”. Author Peter Demetz on the Georg Dehio Book Prize for his life's work, his memories and his new project. In: Prager Zeitung , May 23, 2012
• Article about Demetz on the website of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (with photo and interview videos about his biography)
• 14th and 42nd broadcast of the literary quartet with Peter Demetz on May 6, 1991 and April 26, 1996 respectively
• Ceremonial lecture by Peter Demetz at Masaryk University Brno on the eve of the awarding of the honorary doctorate, November 2014, video on the Youtube channel of the "Wissenschaftskolleg Brno" (in Czech)
• Lecture home and exile. About his work for the exile journal Skutečnost by Peter Demetz, December 5, 2012 at the Wissenschaftskolleg Österreich Bibliothek, Brno on the occasion of PD's 90th birthday
• To listen to: radio portrait of Peter Demetz in the Ö1 series Menschenbilder from 1994
• To listen to: Lecture by Jiří Orten and Rainer Maria Rilke by Peter Demetz (October 17, 2011) at the Wissenschaftskolleg Österreich-Bibliothek (wiko.phil.muni.cz) in the Moravian Regional Library in Brno on the occasion of the publication by Peter Demetz Transfer of Jiří Orten's Elegy / Elegies [1] .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Michael Assmann u. Herbert Heckmann (Ed.): Between Criticism and Confidence. 50 years of the German Academy for Language and Poetry. Wallstein, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 978-3-89244-343-8 , p. 403.
2. ↑ See on this and on the following Demetz 'autobiographical book Mein Prag (2007, see works )
3. ↑ See on this and on Demetz's academic career the article on Demetz in the Munzinger archive .
4. ↑ Entry on Demetz ( Memento of the original from June 8, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Yale University website. 
5. ↑ In English and Czech also Hana Demetz; see. about Hanna / Hana Demetz: S. Lillian Kremer: Hana Demetz. In: Women's Holocaust Writing. Memory and Imagination. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1999, pp. 100-118; S. Lillian Kremer: Hanna Demetz. In: David Patterson, Alan L. Berger u. Sarita Cargas (ed.): Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature. Oryx, Westport 2002, pp. 38-40; S. Lillian Kremer: Hana Demetz. In this. (Ed.): Holocaust Literature. An Encyclopedia of Writers and their Work. Vol. 1: Agosin to Lentin. Routledge, New York et al. London 2003, pp. 265-267. The details of the life data follow those in the German National Library , SL Kremer gives in her articles about H. Demetz 1999 as the year of birth 1928, on the other hand 2002 and 2003 1929.
6. ↑ HD Zimmermann ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ The Czech Library ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 597 kB) on the website of the Random House publishing group . 
8. ↑ Short biography of Demetz ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the Random House publishing group . 
9. ↑ Short biography of Demetz on the Carl Hanser Verlag website .
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Article about Demetz in the exile archive of the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft .
11. ↑ ^{a b c} Short biography of Demetz ( memento of the original from January 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Rutgers University website . 
12. ↑ Materials for the award of the Georg Dehio Book Prize to Demetz.
13. ^ Peter Demetz honoris causa CZ, DE, ENG