Siegfried Lang

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Siegfried Lang around 1914
August Suter: bust of Siegfried Lang, Basel University Library

Siegfried Lang (born March 25, 1887 in Basel ; † February 25, 1970 there ) was a Swiss poet and translator .

Life

Growing up as the son of a businessman in Basel, he studied philology in Basel, Bern and Paris after a detour via painting, which he later described as an error. He received his doctorate with a thesis on Ludwig Amandus Bauer's novel Die Überwenbaren . From 1911 to 1914 he was a lecturer in German literature at the École normal supérieure in Paris, where he met the English painter Frank Budgen ; after that he lived as a librarian , freelance writer and translator in Basel. From his youth, Lang was close friends with the sculptor August Suter , who created the bust of him opposite. He evidently also had ties to the circle that formed around James Joyce during his stay in Zurich from 1916 to 1918.

Misunderstood as a supporter of “pure poetry” and admirer of Stefan Georges, decried as un-Swiss, epigonal and unpopular, he has received little attention to this day (just like his half-brother Paul Lang). As a translator, he devoted himself to authors such as Emily Brontë , Charles Dickens , Daphne du Maurier , Henry Fielding , Edgar Allan Poe and Henry David Thoreau . The well-known and recognized translation of the work I call my people ( Lamuv Verlag ) by the Oglala medicineman Black Elk comes from Siegfried Lang.

Awards

Publications

Original editions

  • Poems . A first harvest from 1904-06, Francke, Bern 1906
  • New poems , Schwabe, Basel 1912
  • Verse 1913–14 , Schwabe, Basel 1914
  • Gardens and walls . Poems, Rhine, Basel 1922
  • The fleeing city . Poems, Orell Füssli, Zurich 1926
  • Sinkings . Selection 1927–1931, Johannespresse, Zurich 1932
  • Elegy . Poems, Johannespresse, Zurich 1936
  • The angel speaks , Johannespresse, Zurich, 1938
  • From the other bank . A selection of collected poems from 1909–1942, Atlantis, Zurich 1944
  • Poems and transmission , Johannespresse, Zurich 1950

Newer editions

  • Poems in Schneider / Lang / Wiesner: Basel Texts No. 1 . Pharos, Basel 1968.
  • Instead of leaves . Poems, selected and with an afterword by Dieter Fringeli , Reinhardt, Basel 1989, ISBN 3-7245-0652-X .

Editing

  • Reader on Swiss poetry , Swiss Book Friends, Zurich 1938
    • reissued as: Swiss Poetry in Cross Section , Zollikofer, St. Gallen 1940

Translations

  • Emily Brontë, Sturmhöhe , Munich: Manesse 1992, ISBN 3-423-24010-5 (with an afterword by Siegfried Lang)
  • Charles Dickens, Great Expectations , Zurich: Manesse 1947
  • Daphne DuMaurier, The Bay of the French , Hamburg 1949
  • Henry Fielding, Tom Jones - The Story of a Foundling , Munich 1965
  • Edgar Allan Poe, Mysterious Events , Zurich 1956
  • Henry David Thoreau, Walden , Zurich 1945

literature

  • Dieter Fringeli: Poetry as beautiful existence , in: Poets on the sidelines. Swiss authors from Glauser to Hohl , Artemis, Zurich and Munich 1974, pp. 121–130 and 174.
  • Silvio Temperli:  Lang, Siegfried. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 525 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Silvio Temperli: Siegfried Lang (1887–1970) , Francke (Basler Studies on German Language and Literature 59), Bern 1983.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lang for his part published: "Der Bildhauer August Suter", in Baselbieter Heimatbuch , 9, 1962, 19-32 (contains a catalog raisonné).
  2. ^ In Lang's estate in the manuscript department of the University Library in Basel there are numerous letters from Frank Budgen and August Suter to Siegfried Lang
  3. ^ Stuart Gilbert, ed., Letters of James Joyce , New York 1957, p. 135.
personal data
SURNAME Lang, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss poet and translator
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1970
Place of death Basel