Rainer Maria Gerhardt

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Rainer Maria Gerhardt (born February 9, 1927 in Karlsruhe , † July 27, 1954 in Karlsruhe) was a German writer, publisher and translator.

life and work

Rainer Maria Gerhardt attended elementary school and began training with a life insurance company in Karlsruhe in 1941. In 1942 he lost his apartment in a bomb attack and finished his apprenticeship in Vienna, where he lived with an uncle, the composer Hans Erich Apostel . There he came into contact with modern literature and music.

In 1947 he attended philosophy lectures at the University of Freiburg as a guest student and tried to catch up with current American poetry ( Ezra Pound , William Carlos Williams , Charles Olson and Robert Creeley ). In addition to titles by Ezra Pound, Claire Goll and Claus Bremer, he also published his own books at his publishing house Fragments, and in the magazine Fragmente, which he edited , an international review of modern poetry , there were texts by Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Basil Bunting , TS Eliot , Robert Creeley, Aimé Césaire , Henry Miller , some of which he translated into German for the first time together with his wife Renate. The second issue of his magazine contained a supplement in which he gathered his poetological thoughts, vehemently attacked Gottfried Benn and cited Arno Schmidt , James Joyce and Paul Klee . His considerations were of great influence on Charles Olson, who was inspired by Gerhardt for his thoughts on space (SPACE) and the breath in modern poetry.

In Germany, Gerhardt found recognition with Ernst Robert Curtius , Alfred Andersch and Hans Magnus Enzensberger , internationally with authors such as William Carlos Williams in America, André Breton and Max Ernst in France or Jean Arp in Switzerland. Gerhardt failed because of the lack of broad recognition that, financially ruined and literarily isolated, drove him to suicide in 1954. His wife Renate Gerhardt (1926–2017), who continued to work as a translator for renowned authors after his death, tried to build on earlier work with Gerhardt Verlag. For example, she translated Virginia Woolf's feminist essay A Room of One's Own from 1929 into German for the first time, gave it the title A Room for Himself and published it in 1978 in her own publishing house.

The Circumference Collection was published on Gerhardt's 80th birthday in February 2007 and was presented to the public at the Berlin Academy of the Arts.

Single track

  • Orbiting. The Complete Works, ed. by Uwe Pörksen, Wallstein Verlag , Göttingen 2007
  • the death of hamlet, Freiburg 1950
  • perimeter, Karlsruhe 1952

Anthologies and literary journals (selection)

  • Hans Bender (ed.), Contrast. German poetry since 1945, Hanser Verlag , Munich 1962
  • FRAGMENTS. leaves for friends. Issues 1 - 6, Freiburg undated
  • fragments. international review for modern poetry, issues 1 and 2, Freiburg 1951
  • Akzente , 3rd edition, Munich 1956

literature

  • Charles Haldeman : The Sun's Attendant, a diptych . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963 (German 2015)
  • Dietmar Noering u. a .: Of saints and people . In: The Haide-Anzeiger. Messages about Arno Schmidt. Issue 17. Frankfurt am Main: Bangert & Metzler 1987, pp. 10-12.
  • Stefan Hyner and Helmut Salzinger (eds.): "Let's just live a little further". About the afterlife of the poet Rainer Maria Gerhardt , in: HEAD FARM, Odisheim 1988. Contains reprint: Helmut Salzinger and Peer Schröder : Rainer M. Gerhardt and the magazine 'fragmente', Falk. Loose leaves for everything, issue 9, Odisheim, October 1984
  • Franz Josef Knape: "... ridden in some languages ​​...". About the work and impact of the poet and mediator Rainer Maria Gerhardt . Publishing house Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995.
  • Uwe Pörksen: When someone lives for what poetry is. Rainer Maria Gerhardt's fragments . Ulrich Keicher publishing house, Warmbronn 2002.
  • Uwe Pörksen in collaboration with Franz Josef Knape and Young-Mi Quester (ed.): Rainer Maria Gerhardt, circle. The complete work . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2007.
  • Georg Patzer: "... still unknown here ..." Rainer Maria Gerhardt in Karlsruhe . German Literature Archive, Marbach 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See d-nb.info
  2. ↑ "The unpaginated booklet appeared in today's Din A5 landscape format with the title addition" collected by rm gerhardt. Freiburg, stadtstrasse 7. duplicated as a manuscript ". The editor closed each issue with the note:" DEAR FRIENDS, unfortunately we can no longer continue the friendly exchange of manuscripts. The slowly growing circle has grown over our heads and, with the best will in the world, we can no longer make as many copies [...], dear friends, pass on the sheets (volume 6: try) so that everyone those you get your hands on who are interested or who might be […] ”- Collection: Peer Schröder.
personal data
SURNAME Gerhardt, Rainer Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, publisher and translator
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1954
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau