Walter Weiss (Germanist)

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Walter Weiss (born July 9, 1927 in Landsberg am Lech , Bavaria; † October 10, 2004 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian German studies scholar and from 1965 until his retirement in 1993 he was a professor for modern German language and literature at the Institute for German Studies at the University of Salzburg .

Work and effect

In teaching and research, Walter Weiss contributed to the opening of his subject for contemporary literature, for previously neglected representatives and aspects of the past and present, as well as for questions that broadened the traditional Germanic spectrum. In 1973, together with other German scholars from Salzburg, he presented an introduction to contemporary literature in paperback form, which met with a wide response. He supervised works on Peter Handke ( Werner Thuswaldner , 1972), Thomas Bernhard (Hans Höller, 1979), Gerhard Fritsch (Karl Schimpl, 1982), Gerhard Amanshauser (Clement Reichholf, 1986), the educational Salzburg literature (Eduard Beutner, 1974) , Literature and Austromarxism (Alfred Pfoser, 1980) a. a., which are among the early or first dissertations devoted to these authors and topics. In lectures and research projects, he sought and promoted dialogue with other disciplines such as history (including seminars and publications with Ernst Hanisch ) and psychology (Manfred Mittermayer: Ich werden. An attempt at a Thomas Bernhard reading, dissertation Salzburg 1987) as well as discussion with new approaches in rhetoric , communication studies and text studies beyond the German-speaking area (Peter Stockinger: The French School of Semiotics . Aspects of a Generative Theory of Semiotics, Diss. Salzburg 1980).

With his Innsbruck habilitation thesis “Enttäuschter Pantheismus”, 1962, and his publication “Thomas Mann's Art of Linguistic-Thematic Integration”, 1964, Weiss gave Biedermeier research and Thomas Mann philology to this day, among others, by P. Sloterdijk and W. Frizen heeded the impetus. In the debate about the definition of Austrian literature, he made a name for himself with theses on the thematization of "order" and language as well as through his examination of the perspectives that Claudio Magris made in his book "Il mito absburgico nella letteratura austriaca moderna" (1963 , "The Habsburg Myth in Modern Austrian Literature" 1966).

In a lecture on "Goethe's funny (r) person" in 1993, Weiss took the Germanist Faust interpretation of a long-practiced rash inclination towards harmonizing reconciliation and referred to his own Innsbruck dissertation "Goethe's Mephisto. Development and nature seen from Faust II ”, 1952, self-critically. In his public final lecture in Salzburg, he accused leading representatives of the Austrian Freedom Party ( FPÖ ) of forgetting history. In doing so, he indirectly built a bridge to positions he had taken in the past when he initially refused in 1971 to contribute to a commemorative publication for the 65th birthday of the formerly avowed National Socialist Adalbert Schmidt , when he was in context in 1977 The awarding of the Georg Trakl Prize to Reiner Kunze in a polemical confrontation with Klemens Renoldner saw an occasion to accuse him of being close to the justification of inhuman ideological totalitarianism from the left, and when he, himself close to the Austrian People's Party ( ÖVP ) and a practicing Catholic ( who made use of the possibility of lay preaching in Salzburg churches), welcomed the turnaround initiated by Lech Wałęsa in Poland, but also characterized the rhetoric of certain papal encyclicals as tending to be misogynistic and unchristian.

Weiss' literary and scientific practice characterized in monographic works and panoramic essays the attempt to take literature seriously as a current work of language art, without cutting it off from its historical and extra-literary references. Theoretically, he claimed the attitude of motivated eclecticism and thus took a position against subjectivist immanentist, structuralist objectivist, psychologistic, sociologistic , empirical, hastily politicizing, irrationalist and pragmatic tendencies that he found in the discussion and application of methods and in the field of style research perceived and criticized as short-circuit simplifications (and disambiguation of the aesthetic): with representatives of the exclusive, faithful individualizing interpretation in the manner of Benedetto Croce and their radically rationalist counterparts, in Marxist and psychoanalytic approaches, with Siegfried J. Schmidt , the Austrian social and cultural historian Ernst Hanisch (as interpreter of Georg Trakl ), among representatives of poststructuralism and postmodernism such as Michel Foucault , Jacques Derrida , Peter Sloterdijk and in the pragma style of Barbara Sandig . From his own point of view, Weiss stood with this conception of literary studies and the like. a. in the succession of Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Robert Musil as well as in a close relationship to the concepts of text studies, cultural studies and aesthetics with Harald Weinrich , Rolf Kloepfer , Juri Michailowitsch Lotman , Miroslav Červenka , Harald Fricke , Johannes Anderegg and Peter V. Zima .

Independent publications, editorship (selection)

  • Goethe's Mephisto. Development and essence seen from Faust II. Dissertation Innsbruck 1952.
  • German is not that difficult. Small language lessons for foreigners. Diesterweg, Frankfurt a. M. 1957 and Österr. Verl.-Anstalt,; Innsbruck 1957.
  • Disappointed pantheism. On the shaping of the world of poetry during the restoration period . Dornbirn 1962. (= law and change. Innsbruck literature-historical works 3)
  • The songs of Oswald von Wolkenstein . Ed. V. KK Klein unt. Mitw. V. W. Weiss et al. N. Wolf, music appendix by W. Salmen. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1962. (= Old German Text Library 55)
  • Thomas Mann's art of linguistic and thematic integration . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1964. (= active word. Supplement 13)
  • Poetry and grammar. On the question of grammatical interpretation . Inaugural lecture. Pustet, Salzburg / Munich 1967. (= Salzburg University Speeches 18)
  • Contemporary literature. Approaches to their understanding . Edited by W. Weiss, J. Donnenberg, A. Haslinger u. K. Rossbacher. Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, Mainz: Kohlhammer 1973, 2nd edition 1977. (= Urban-Taschenbücher 162, ISBN 3-17-004317-X )
  • W. Weiss (Ed.), S. Schmid (Ed.): Interim balance. An anthology of contemporary Austrian literature . Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 1976.
  • with Hans Weichselbaum (Ed.): Salzburger Trakl Symposion. Trakl Studies - Volume 9, Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 1978, ISBN 3-7013-0567-6 .
  • W. Weiss (Hrsg.), E. Beutner (Hrsg.): Literature and language in Austria between the wars. Polish-Austrian Germanist Symposium 1983 in Salzburg . Heinz, Stuttgart 1985. (= Stuttgart theses on German studies 163. Salzburg contributions 11)
  • W. Weiss (ed.), E. Hanisch (ed.): Vermittlungs. Texts and contexts of Austrian literature and history . Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 1990.
  • "Kakanien". Essays on Austrian and Hungarian literature, art and culture at the turn of the century. Edited by E. Thurnher, W. Weiss, J. Szabó, A. Tamás. Vienna, Budapest: Austrian Academy of Sciences; Akadémiai Kiadó 1991. (= series of publications of the Austro-Hungarian mixed commission for literary studies. 2)
  • GDR literature / Austrian literature. A dialogue in autumn 1989. Ed. By W. Weiss u. H. Höller. Stuttgart: Heinz 1992. (= Stuttgart theses on German studies 265. Salzburg contributions 22)
  • Approaches to literature (science) I. Literary language. Stuttgart: Heinz 1995. ISBN 3-88099-331-9
  • Approaches to literature (science) II. Austrian literature. Stuttgart: Heinz 1995. ISBN 3-88099-332-7
  • Approach to literature (science) III. Goethe, Thomas Mann; Literary studies. Stuttgart: Heinz 1995. ISBN 3-88099-333-5
  • Text linguistics versus stylistics? Vocabulary and dictionary. Grammatical or pragmatic organization of speech? Ed. V. W. Weiss, HE Wiegand u. M. Rice. Tübingen: Niemeyer 1996.
  • The Bible in German-Language Literature of the 20th Century. Volume 1: Forms and Motifs, Volume 2: People and Figures. Ed. V. H. Schmidinger in conjunction with Gottfried Bachl , J. Holzner, Karl-Josef Kuschel , M. Motté a. W. Weiss. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald 1999. ISBN 3-7867-2171-8
  • Christoph Leitgeb u. Richard Reichensperger: Grillparzer and Musil: Studies on a linguistic style history of Austrian literature. Ed. V. W. Weiss. Heidelberg: Winter 2000. ISBN 3-8253-0844-8
  • Again: poetry and politics. From the text to the political and social context and back. Edited by Oswald Panagl u. W. Weiss. Vienna, Graz: Böhlau 2000. ISBN 3-205-99289-X

Essays and others

Selected publications that are not included in the above-mentioned three-part cassette "Approaches to literature (science)", 1995:

  • Observer and deserter. On the prose of the Salzburg author Gerhard Amanshauser. In: periphery and center. Studies on Austrian literature. Festschrift for Adalbert Schmidt on his 65th birthday. Ed. V. G. Weiss et al. K. Zelewitz. Salzburg-Stuttgart-Zurich: Das Bergland-Buch 1971, pp. 335–345.
  • Salzburg literature. Presence and Present. In: MGSLK (= communications from the Society for Salzburg Regional Studies) 120/121, 1980/81, pp. 445–458.
  • Literary methods and fashions. In: “Crisis of Modernity” and the Renaissance of the Humanities. Ed. V. G. Magerl, O. Panagl, H. Rumpler u. E. Waldschütz. Vienna: Böhlau 1997 (= Science. Education. Politics. 1, ISBN 3-205-98804-3 ), pp. 31–41.

Literature on W. Weiss (selection)

  • David Brett-Evans (review): Walter Weiss, German is not that difficult . In: ZfdPh (= Journal for German Philology) 78 (1959), p. 109.
  • Egon Schwarz: Poetry, Criticism, History. Essays on Literature 1900–1930 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1983, ISBN 3-525-20753-0 .
  • Dialogue of the ages. Studies on the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Walter Weiss on his 60th birthday . Ed. V. E. Beutner, J. Donnenberg, A. Haslinger, H. Höller, K. Rossbacher, S. Schmid-Bortenschlager. Editorial assistance: M. Mittermayer and Anton Thuswaldner . Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag 1987.
  • Obituary for Walter Weiss (1927–2004) . In: LANGUAGE ART. Contributions to literary studies 35/2004, 2nd half volume, pp. 205–206.
  • Karlheinz Rossbacher, Eduard Beutner: Obituary on. em. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Walter Weiss, died on October 10, 2004 . In: stimulus. Announcements from the Austrian Society for German Studies . Edition Praesens, Vienna 2005, pp. 129–131.

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personal data
SURNAME Weiss, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Germanist and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Landsberg am Lech , Bavaria
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 2004
Place of death Salzburg