Richard Perls

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Richard Perls (born January 6, 1873 in Gleiwitz , † November 24, 1898 in Munich ) was a German poet .

Life

Perls came from a family of bankers in Breslau . He began studying physics at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin at the age of 17 . One of his teachers there was Hermann von Helmholtz until he moved to Munich , where he studied psychology with Theodor Lipps . The gifted Perls quickly became a welcome member of intellectual circles. In the 1890s he was associated with Theodor Lessing and Ludwig Klages . He made a great impression everywhere, Lessing wrote: "Richard Perls was a youth of great beauty, not dissimilar to Heinrich Heine's youthful image, mockingly dreamy and greatly overbred". Perls was particularly interested in the literature of French symbolism , he read works by Joris-Karl Huysmans , Charles Baudelaire , Paul Verlaines and Stéphane Mallarmés . He soon had a considerable collection of valuable first editions and dedicatory copies of Symbolist and other writings. Through Ludwig Klages he met Stefan George in Munich in spring 1895 , who made a lasting impression on him. He subsequently published numerous poems in George's Blätter für die Kunst .

His promising literary and intellectual career failed early on, however, because Perls became heavily dependent on morphine even before meeting George . In May 1895 Perls set out on a trip through Europe, which initially took him to Rome via Sils-Maria and Innsbruck . There he frequented Henriette Hertz 's salon in the Palazzo Zuccari , where he met Sabine and Reinhold Lepsius, among others . He raved about Stefan George and his poetry to them. He then went on to Paris , where he met the Polish poet Wacław Rolicz-Lieder , a friend of Georges. Perls returned to Munich in 1896 via Brussels , where he met George again. There he started a rehab, which he quickly broke off. His physical decline as a result of addiction to morphine continued to advance. In 1897 he traveled again to Paris, where Lieder tended him. It was here that he also met Oscar AH Schmitz , who later wrote about him: “If there was a person in Germany who really embodied what was called ' fin de siècle ' at the time, it was this person in Huysmans and Baudelaire, Verlaine and Mallarmé nourished, hopeless young person ”.

Back in Munich, Perls' physical condition became unbearable. Lessing reported from his last meeting with him that he had been lying “in a tub full of hot water”, “because the touch of his shirt tortured the ulcer-covered skin. He screamed and whimpered; no guard held up ”. Perls finally died in late November 1898, at the age of 25. George then published "Some verses from Richard Perls' estate" in the Blätter für die Kunst . He also put together a few “memorial messages” with Schmitz and Karl Wolfskehl , who had also known Perls. Among them was George's poem The End of the Trip. To Richard Perls , which was also published in the volume The Carpet of Life and the Songs of Dream and Death with a Prelude (1899).

Trial poem: Flowers from Death I


Flowers from death

I.

How souls glow in one another
When the tones of your hand dissipate
How the colorful flowers quietly bloom
When we quietly exchange dark words!

Take away their valuables from things!
Braid the worlds into a daring wreath
And while playing dark sadnesses
Locke souls to the last dance!

Then bow down to me in purity.
Whisper the secret to me
and I kiss your tired lids
mountains you in dream-deep peace.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Richard Perls  - Sources and full texts

Remarks

  1. ^ Renate Heuer , Bibliographia Judaica. Directory of Jewish authors in the German language , Volume 2, Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1984, p. 204; Franz Heiduk , Oberschlesisches Literaturlexikon , Part 2, 1990, p. 415.
  2. ^ Theodor Lessing, once and never again , Gütersloh 1969, p. 313, here cited from Karlauf, Stefan George , p. 160.
  3. ^ This collection was later included in the catalog Um Stefan George. German and French literature at the turn of the century in first prints and dedicatory pieces mostly from the Richard Perls collection , Munich 1925.
  4. ↑ Cf. Annette Dorgerloh : The artist couple Lepsius. On Berlin portrait painting around 1900. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2003, p. 217; Karlauf, Stefan George , p. 225.
  5. ↑ Oscar AH Schmitz, Demon World. Years of Development , Munich 1926, p. 171. Quoted here from Karlauf, Stefan George , p. 160.
  6. ↑ Lessing, once and never again , Gütersloh 1969, p. 317f. Quoted from Karlauf, Stefan George , p. 163.
  7. ↑ Blätter für die Kunst , 4th part, 3rd volume (September 1899), pp. 65–68.
  8. ^ Richard Perls, Blumen vom Tode I , in: Blätter für die Kunst , 3rd volume, 3rd volume (June 1896), p. 80.
personal data
SURNAME Perls, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Gliwice
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1898
Place of death Munich