Richard Exner

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Richard Carl Hugo Exner (born May 13, 1929 in Lower Saxony ; † July 16, 2008 in Berlin ) was a German-American literary scholar , poet and translator .

life and work

Richard Exner spent childhood and school in Darmstadt . After emigrating to the USA in 1950, he studied modern German literature and comparative literature with Ludwig Marcuse ( BA 1951, Ph.D. 1957) at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles . He then taught at the Universities of Rochester , Princeton and Oberlin , most recently from 1965 until his retirement in 1991 at the University of California, Santa Barbara . Richard Exner was also visiting professor at MIT (1969/1970), at Stanford University (1973/1974), at the University of Nice (1980) and at the University of Western Australia in Perth (1983). The focus of his academic work was, among other things, his lifelong occupation with Hofmannsthal , essay writing in general and that of Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann in particular, with Rainer Maria Rilke and with German-language poetry after the Second World War . Exner also translated texts by Robinson Jeffers , Wallace Stevens and William Butler Yeats into German, and from Heinz Piontek , Günter Bruno Fuchs and Rainer Maria Rilke into English.

In addition to his literary work, Exner published numerous volumes of poetry in German. Karl Krolow characterized the poet Exner “as someone who knows how to write sensitively intoned, initially passionate, and now moderate verses. […] The landscape, the season and personal experiences were [him] often the reason for writing. Soon this personal aspect was expressed more clearly and also more reflexively, more distantly. The 'personal substance', which his work was praised for, was retained, refined and branched out in the muffling of the key ”. Krolow further emphasizes Exner's “nervousness in the poem” and concludes: “[His] tone of complaint is collected, discreet and characterized by restraint - as in the elegiac final poem 'Nachgagt'”:

"Happiness
is experienced in
that it passed
to us
that we could not hold it
[...]"

- Richard Exner : added

Awards and honors

Scientific work (selection)

  • Hugo von Hofmannsthal's 'Lebenslied'. A study. Winter Verlag, Heidelberg 1964.
  • Index nominum for Hugo von Hofmannsthal's collected works. Lothar Stiehm Verlag, Heidelberg 1976.
  • Rudolf Alexander Schröder : Aphorisms and Reflections. Selection and afterword by Richard Exner, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1977.
  • Rainer Maria Rilke: The life of Mary. Presented by Richard Exner. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-458-16981-4 .

Lyric work

  • Poems. Limes Verlag, Wiesbaden 1956.
  • Almost a conversation. Schneekluth Verlag, Munich 1980.
  • With a smokeless flame. Schneekluth Verlag, Munich 1982.
  • A raft made of letters. Schneekluth Verlag, Munich 1985.
  • Half a sky. Schneekluth Verlag, Munich 1988.
  • Sites. A cycle of poems. Edition Toni Pongratz, Hauzenberg 1988.
  • Children's fair. Poem cycle. with drawings by Mario Schosser, Edition Toni Pongratz, Hauzenberg 1989.
  • The Night (Seven Cantos). Outskirts 37/38, Plön 1990.
  • Thirty-seven descriptions of proximity and distance. Lyric sentences. with drawings by Mario Schosser, Edition Toni Pongratz, Hauzenberg 1991.
  • A leap in silence. Poems and Cycles. Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 1992.
  • Poems 1953–1991. Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-87173-027-0 .
  • The child. Six advent poems. Edition Toni Pongratz, Hauzenberg 1995.
  • The tongue as a reward. Poems 1991–1995. Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996.
  • Poems. with drawings by Jan Wawrzyniak, Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-87173-176-5 .
  • Between time. Poems. Read by the author himself, on the harp Nora Sander, Verlag Sankt Michaelsbund, Munich, 2000 (audio book)
  • Shore. Poems 1996-2003. Radius-Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-87173-266-4 .
  • Stele. Poem. Edition Toni Pongratz, Hauzenberg 2004, ISBN 3-931883-36-1 .
  • Among themselves. Poems from thirty years. Verlag Sankt Michaelsbund, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-920821-44-0 .
  • The garden behind. Denklingen 2004, ISBN 3-931798-25-9 .
  • When the light fades. Denklingen 2005, ISBN 3-931798-28-3 .
  • Memory of the light. Poems 2003-2006. Edition Toni Pongratz, Hauzenberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-931883-52-3 .
  • The whole life. Late poems. Edition Toni Pongratz, Hauzenberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-931883-68-3 .

Compositions based on texts by Richard Exner (selection)

  • Alois Bröder : … how big birds beat their prey . For mixed choir a cappella, based on a text by Richard Exner, 1994.
  • ders .: Left Silence . Five songs for mezzo-soprano and large orchestra, based on texts by Richard Exner, Edition Gravis, Bad Schwalbach 2002.
  • Robert M. Helmschrott : Perfection . Three songs for voice and piano, based on texts by Richard Exner, 1993.
  • ders .: encounter. Seven choral songs for mixed choir a cappella, B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1994.
  • ders .: human time. Five choral songs for mixed choir a cappella, based on texts by Richard Exner, Schott's Chorverlag, Mainz 1996.

literature

  • Detlev F. Neufert : Double life: Richard Exner. Portrait of an emigrant . Documentary WDR / SWR 1988.
  • Stephan Speicher: Richard Exner. In: Walther Killy (Ed.): Literaturlexikon. Authors and works of German language. Volume 3, Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-570-04673-7 .
  • Ursula Mahlendorf, Laurence Arthur Rickels (eds.): Poetry Poetics Translation. Commemorative publication in Honor of Richard Exner. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 1994, ISBN 3-88479-868-5 .
  • Paul Konrad Kurz : A raft made of letters. A poet can be discovered: Richard Exner's poems 1953–1991. In: Rheinischer Merkur . July 14, 1995.
  • Christoph Gellner: »A leap in silence«. Richard Exner's »touch« spirituality , in: Christoph Gellner: »... open to the top«. Literature and Spirituality - Contemporary Profiles , pp. 104–125, Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Ostfildern 2013, ISBN 978-3-7867-2998-3

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Krolow: The emptiness of the last things. 'A raft made of letters' - poems by Richard Exner. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Feb. 4, 1986.
  2. ^ Richard Exner: Poems 1953-1991. 1994, p. 132.
  3. ^ Richard Exner: Poems 1953-1991. 1994, p. 94ff.
  4. ↑ List of MacDowell Fellows ( Memento of the original dated May 26, 2009 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.macdowellcolony.org
  5. ↑ Homepage of the Bible and Culture Foundation

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Exner, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Exner, Richard Carl Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American literary scholar and writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Lower Saxony
DATE OF DEATH July 16, 2008
Place of death Berlin