Robert Weimann

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Robert Weimann (born November 18, 1928 in Magdeburg ; † August 9, 2019 in Bernau near Berlin ) was a German English scholar, literature and theater scholar . He became known to a wider public primarily as an explorer of Shakespeare's epoch.

Life

Weimann studied English and Slavic studies from 1947 to 1951 at the Martin Luther University in Halle . Until 1955 he was a scientific aspirant in postgraduate studies and did his doctorate at the Humboldt University in Berlin . From 1959 Weimann was senior assistant and acting head of English and American studies at the Potsdam University of Education . After his habilitation in 1962, he was professor of English literary history and general literary studies in Berlin between 1965 and 1968. He then moved to the Academy of Sciences in the GDR , where he was department head and later research group leader at the Central Institute for the History of Literature until 1991 . Weimann has held numerous visiting professorships in the USA since 1974 . From 1991 to 1994 he was acting director (since 1993 with Eberhard Lämmert ) of the Center for Literary Research, Berlin and from 1992 to 2001 Professor of Theater Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Numerous lectures have taken him to European universities.

Research topics and directions

The early books and writings were concerned with a historical and aesthetic definition of the modern theater and the modern novel: a new interpretation of their sociological presuppositions and the themes and forms essentially based on them. The dissertation (1958) already referred to the social “mingle-mangle” (John Lyly) of an epoch of transition and mobility of classes, individuals, ideas in the age of Tudor absolutism and especially the heyday of Elizabethan theater .

The Volkstheater-Buch (1967) aimed at the traditional, post-ritual component of plebeian provenance in the coexistence of humanistic, courtly Renaissance elements and an oral, performative culture of a predramatic performance practice. The classical rhetorical impulse of humanistic character, which had so far been in the foreground in the Shakespeare criticism, was complemented and expanded by an oral-performative fundus, which drew from partly still pagan-ritual sources, from medieval folk customs, secular-rural parades, sword dance, Plow game and other seasonal customs, disguises and the like. This resulted in forms and functions that were neglected at the time, especially those of a non-classical dramaturgical nature. It was precisely these aspects that found an unexpected response in East and West German contemporary theater , for which reasons the book gave an essential impetus for the establishment of the Bremer shakespeare company and the author was invited to consultative work on Berlin productions, for example at the Deutsches Theater and the Berliner Ensemble ( Manfred Wekwerth ) and at the Volksbühne ( Benno Besson ). Peter Stein and Dieter Sturm directed “Shakespeare's Memory” largely based on the above book.

Beginning with the habilitation thesis ( New Criticism , 1962), a controversial circle of theoretical-aesthetic basic questions was drafted, which combined the open acceptance, but also the decisive criticism of Western European-modern positions of formal aesthetics with dialectical-historically pointed alternatives. While these were initially still under the dominant influence of Georg Lukács' anti-modernist identification aesthetics, the mythology book (1971/77) significantly expanded this conception. The usual fixations of the reflection aesthetics, thus the still rigid confrontation between art and reality, was replaced by the idea and practice of appropriating spirit and world. Under the sign of this conception, a comparatively far-reaching reinterpretation of the theory and history of prosaic forms in the Renaissance was drafted, introduced in detail and published. Finally, the idea of ​​literary history, which runs counter to mythology, culminates in a dialectic of “past significance and present meaning”, initially explored in English, as set out in the Structure and Society in Literary History (1976/77; 84), which was published several times.

With a lecture on Luther's 1982 year, the question of an early modern media culture was posed in which printing and pamphlets, reading, listening and writing were in a new kind of reciprocal relationship. In the area of ​​their reception and effect, the source location of a novel, mutable interaction of power and consciousness, domination and representation was determined. With a critical reference to Michel Foucault's theory of the relationship between discourse and power, theatrical-dramatic and literary-prosaic forms were henceforth researched with a view to the authority and authorization of their modes of representation (Shakespeare and the power of mimesis, 1988). In this context, a volume on the changing narrative form and structure of the American novel on the threshold of modernity was conceived, introduced as a co-author and published (1989). The author then published an English-language study of the prose of the Reformation and early modern fiction in 1996: Authority and Representation in Early Modern Discourse.

The European crises and upheavals of 1989/90 provided essential impulses for this, both theoretical and cultural-historical observance. These were also re-accentuated in such a way that the difference, the opposition and togetherness, of plebeian display and socially upscale, humanistic written culture led to a contemporary relevant view of the two main media of modern theater, performance and text, play and language. Historically and sociologically and then in terms of performance, based on Shakespeare's plays, these relationships were developed and presented in English in two books in 2000 and 2008. These focal points were ultimately chosen because precisely these two media have lost a previously gripping measure of reciprocity on German contemporary stages. In the theater of our time, however, alternative forms are faced with unsolved artistic questions, such as those last discussed in “Language and Play on the Stage” (in: Poetica, 2010).

Memberships and honors

Fonts

Monographs

  • Shakespearean Drama and Reality. A contribution to the history of the development of Elizabethan theater. Halle 1958 (extended dissertation).
  • Daniel Defoe. An introduction to the novel. Hall 1962.
  • “ New Criticism ” and the Development of Bourgeois Literature. History and criticism of new methods of interpretation. Halle 1962 (habilitation thesis). Translation into Russian (Moscow 1965); Hungarian (Budapest 1965); Czech (Prague 1974); 2nd ext. Edition Munich 1974.
  • Shakespeare and the tradition of popular theater . Sociology, dramaturgy, design. Berlin 1967. Translation into English (Baltimore / London 1978; Paperback ed. 1984); into Japanese (Tokyo 1986); Italian (Bologna 1989).
  • Imagination and imitation. 3 studies on the relationship between poetry, utopia and myth. Hall 1970.
  • Literary history and mythology. Methodological and historical studies. Berlin / Weimar 1971; Translation into Russian (Moscow 1975); 2nd ext. Edition Frankfurt am Main 1977.
  • Structure and Society in Literary History. Studies in the History and Theory of Historical Criticism. Charlottesville 1976, London 1977. Expanded ed., Baltimore 1984.
  • Literatura: Produkcjo i Recepcja. Studia z metodologii historii literatury. [Collection of the author's essays translated into Polish, including on reception aesthetics] Warsaw 1978.
  • Art ensemble and the public. Acquisition, self-understanding, discussion. Leipzig / Halle 1982.
  • Shakespeare and the power of mimesis. Authority and Representation in Elizabethan Theater. Berlin / Weimar 1988.
  • Authority and Representation in Early Modern Discourse. Baltimore 1996.
  • Between performance and representation: Shakespeare and the power of theater. Articles from 1959–1995. Edited by Christian W. Thomsen and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer. Heidelberg 2000.
  • Author's pen and actor's voice. Playing and Writing in Shakespeare's Theater. Cambridge UP 2000.
  • Prologues to Shakespeare's Theater. Performance and Liminality in Early Modern Drama. London 2004 (with Douglas Bruster).
  • Shakespeare and the Power of Performance. Stage and Page in the Elizabethan Theater. Cambridge UP 2008 (with Douglas Bruster).

Published works

  • Shakespearean dramas. Ed. And introduction. Leipzig 1964.
  • Tradition in literary history. Contributions to the criticism of the bourgeois concept of tradition in Croce, Ortega, Eliot, Leavis, Barthes and others. a. Ed., Introduction and contribution. Berlin 1972.
  • Renaissance literature and the early bourgeois revolution. Studies on the social and ideological historical foundations of European national literature. Ed. And contribution. With Werner Lenk and Joachim-Jürgen Slomka. Berlin / Weimar 1976.
  • Realism in the Renaissance. Appropriating the world in narrative prose. Ed., Introduction and contributions. Berlin / Weimar 1977.
  • The North American novel. Representation and Authorization in the Modern Age. Ed., Introduction and contributions. Berlin / Weimar 1989.
  • Postmodern - global difference. With Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht . Ed. And introduction. Frankfurt am Main 1991.
  • Edges of modernity. Representation and Alterity in (Post) Colonial Discourse. Ed., Introduction and contribution. Frankfurt am Main 1997.

Over 40 essays and articles on literary, cultural and historical questions. Translations in 18 languages.

Secondary literature

biography

  • “Bibliography of the writings of Robert Weimann” (until 1987). In: Journal for English and American Studies, 36 (1988), pp. 295–305.
  • Berlin - a place to write. 347 authors from A – Z. Ed. by Karin Kiwus on behalf of the AdK. Berlin 1996, pp. 524-527.
  • Who's Who in the World. 14th Edition Marquis 1997 ff. P. 1555.
  • Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus multimedial premium 2005.
  • PEN Center Germany. Author Lexicon. Darmstadt 2009/2010, pp. 493-494.
  • Academy of Arts. Directory of members and their works.
  • Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Weimann, Robert . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Appreciation, criticism, interview

  • Manfred Wojcik, “Zur Interpretation des 'Robinson Crusoe'”, Journal of English and American Studies, 27 (1979), pp. 5-34; Reply ibid., Pp. 258-261.
  • Hans-Gert Roloff , “The shine and misery of theory - questions to the Renaissance research team by Robert Weimann”, Lendemain's issue 16 (Nov. 1979), pp. 63–80; Reply, ibid., No. 20 (Nov. 1980), pp. 135-147.
  • Colin B. Grant, "Public - Discourse - Communication." An interview with Robert Weimann. In: Weimarer Contributions, 37 (1991), pp. 1153-1162.
  • "Shakespeare: Then and Now." Interview of Seiko Aoyama with Robert Weimann. In: The Rising Generation 87 (Tokyo, 1992), No. 10, pp. 2-6.
  • Utz Riese, "Poststructuralism / Postmodernism and the approaching change in the GDR." In: How international is literary studies? Ed. By Lutz Danneberg and Friedrich Vollhart (Stuttgart, 1996), pp. 425-439.
  • Redefining Shakespeare. Literary Theory and Theater Practice in the German Democratic Republic. Ed. by J. Lawrence Guntner. Newark 1998, pp. 41-50.
  • John Drakakis, “Discourse and Authority. The Renaissance of Robert Weimann ”. In: Shakespeare Studies, 26 (1998), pp. 83-104.
  • K. Ludwig Pfeiffer , “To the situation of a historical-theoretical discourse”, pp. 5–9 and Wolfgang Wicht, “Shakespeare in the GDR: Affirmation and Subversion”, pp. 10–13, as an introduction to: Robert Weimann, Between Performanz and representation. Essays. Ed. by Christian W. Thomsen and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer. Heidelberg 2000.
  • Modernization without modernity. The Central Institute for the History of Literature at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (1969–1991). Experimental literature research. Ed. by Petra Boden and Dorothea Böck. Heidelberg 2004 (pp. 92–132 interview with Robert Weimann).
  • Robert Weimann's Life Work: Localizing Shakespeare. Panel discussion. British Shakespeare Association Conference (London 2009), Sept. 6.
  • Shakespearean International Yearbook, 10 (2010). With Special Section entitled, The Achievement of Robert Weimann (pp. 3-204).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the obituary of the Academy of Arts on Weimann's death , published online on August 16, 2019. See also the obituaries of August 16, 2019 in the online extra of the young world mourning Shakespeare researcher Robert Weimann and August 17, 2019 Nachtkritik.de Shakespeare researcher Robert Weimann dies . Deviating from these sources, the Süddeutsche Zeitung in its obituary dated August 19, 2019, The Anglist Robert Weimann is dead, the anniversary of Weimann's death is not August 9, 2019, but April 9, 2019 in Bernau. All sources mentioned were accessed on August 19, 2019.
  2. ↑ Shakespeare researcher Robert Weimann has passed away - obituary from August 17, 2019 on nachtkritik.de , accessed August 20, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Weimann, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vejman, Robert; Weimann, Robert Karl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German English studies, literature and theater scholar and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 2019
Place of death Bernau