Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler

Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler ( Quotes 2007)

Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (born May 20, 1942 in Zagreb ; † September 7, 2008 in Vienna ) was an Austrian literary and linguist . Schmidt-Dengler was chairman of the Institute for German Studies at the University of Vienna , head of the literature archive of the Austrian National Library and honorary chairman of the Heimito von Doderer Society .

life and work

After attending school in Vienna, he studied Classical Philology and German Philology at the University of Vienna and originally wanted to become a teacher for Latin and German. In 1965 he was with the dissertation Stylistic studies on the Confessions of Aurelius Augustinus to Dr. phil. PhD. In 1974 his habilitation in Genius followed . On the history of the impact of ancient mythologems in Goethe's time . For him, these mythologems were a key to understanding the literature of the 18th to 20th centuries, which he eventually specialized in.

In 1966 he became an assistant and in 1980 professor at the Institute for German Studies at the University of Vienna. In 1996 he took over the management of the Austrian Literature Archive at the Austrian National Library , which he founded on his initiative , for which he secured the bequests of Austrian authors such as Ödön von Horváth , Hilde Spiel , Ernst Jandl and many others, as well as autographs from Egon Friedell to Peter Handke . Schmidt-Dengler also held visiting professorships in Pisa , Naples , Klagenfurt , Salzburg , Graz and Stanford .

Schmidt-Dengler dealt mainly with the Austrian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries and with the German literature of the 18th century. There were also contributions to the reception of antiquity since humanism.

As scientific director of the Thomas Bernhard private archive , he edited the works of Thomas Bernhard . Schmidt-Dengler has published short stories and several volumes of Heimito von Doderer's diaries as well as editions of works by Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando , Albert Drach and Thomas Bernhard in editions that are critical of the work.

Towards the end of his life, Schmidt-Dengler turned against the dismantling of co-determination for students and institutes at universities and against the formation of so-called “ elites ” who would then be “held up against ” the students. Here he often brought the comparison with elite athletes who later in life become "elite cripples". His interest in sport also made him known in sections of the population who had little contact with literary studies. He was often to be found in football stadiums , the function of which he compared with that of the Greek theater , in which the audience could build up and relieve tension.

Schmidt-Dengler was the first president of the Austrian Society for German Studies from 1992 to 1996 .

Schmidt-Dengler succumbed to a pulmonary embolism on September 7, 2008 . He was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Awards

• 1968: Theodor Körner Prize
• 1978: Prize of the City of Vienna
• 1979: Cardinal Innitzer Prize for the Humanities
• 1994: Austrian State Prize for Literary Criticism
• 1997: Prize of the City of Vienna for the humanities
• 2002: Gold Medal of Honor for Services to the State of Vienna
• 2007: Scientist of the Year
• 2007: International Prize "European Literature Cathedrals"
• 2008: Julius Campe Prize

Publications

Single publications

• Stylistic studies on the structure of the Augustinian denominations. Vienna 1965, OCLC 494359923 (Dissertation University of Vienna, 1965).
• Genius. On the history of the impact of ancient mythologems in Goethe's time. Beck, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-406-03916-2 (habilitation thesis University of Vienna, 1974, under the title: Genius: a contribution to the history of the impact of ancient mythologems in the time of Goethe. ÖNB Hauptab. Heldenplatz ).
• An avant-garde from Graz. Carinthia, Klagenfurt 1979.
• with Martin Huber (Ed.): Instead of Bernhard. About misanthropy in the work of Thomas Bernhard . Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-7046-0082-2 .
• Fault lines. Lectures on Austrian literature 1945–1990. Residence, Vienna / Salzburg 1995.
• The hyperbole. Studies on Thomas Bernhard. Special number, Vienna 1997.
• The real bird. Six studies in memory of Ernst Jandl. Edition Praesens, Vienna 2001.
• Nestroy. The whims of luck. Zsolnay, Vienna 2001.
• Without nostalgia. On Austrian literature from the interwar period. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-205-77016-1 .

There are also around 400 publications in magazines and edited volumes (1964 to 2004).

• Literary outsiders: Friedrich Hölderlin, Franz Kafka . Audiobook CD and booklet, 74 minutes (= Edition Radio-Literatur ), ORF Ö1, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-901846-73-5 .
• Gerald Sommer (Ed.): Can be visited at any time. About Heimito von Doderer. CH Beck, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-63852-7 .

Scientific Series (Editing)

• Viennese works on literature. Braumüller, Vienna 1984-2008.
• On more recent Austrian literature. Braumüller, Vienna 1995–2008.

Editing

• with Gerhard Renner: Book research and literary history: Festschrift for Murray G. Hall on his 60th birthday. Edition Praesens, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-7069-0476-6 .
• with Andreas Weber: When I once interviewed Harreither in the shower. 11 texts on Austrian football . Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 2008.
• with Peter Engelmann and Michael Franz : Weimar Contributions - magazine for literary studies, aesthetics and cultural studies.
• with Martin Huber : Thomas Bernhard : Works in 22 volumes. Suhrkamp Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2003 ff.

literature

• Martin A. Hainz , Konstantin Kaiser : On the death of Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (1942–2008) . In: “Zwischenwelt”, magazine for the culture of exile and resistance . No. 3/4, Volume 25, Theodor Kramer Society , December 2008, ISSN  1606-4321 , p. 11 .
• Stephan Kurz, Michael Rohrwasser, Daniela Strigl (eds.): The poet and his Germanist. In Memoriam Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (= On the more recent Austrian literature. Volume 26). new academic press, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7003-1836-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Institute for German Studies at the University of Vienna
• Review notes on Nestroy in the culture magazine Perlentaucher .
• The passion of reading. In: The Standard . September 8, 2008.
• Klaus Ebner : Review of fault lines . ( Memento from January 14, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: etcetera .
• Sigrid Grün: Review of fault lines . In: Glarean Magazine.
• Short biography at the Austrian Society for Literature.
• Short texts by Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler. eLib.at - Austrian contemporary literature from 1990
• Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler in the literature archive of the Austrian National Library
• Archive recordings with Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler in the online archive of the Austrian Media Center (lectures, lectures)
• Online exhibition with image and sound documents from the Austrian National Library's literature archive on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of death, 2018

Lecture video

• 80-minute lecture by Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler as part of the lecture series "Austria after the end of the Cold War" (summer semester 2007), University of Vienna, high resolution * low resolution .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler. TV documentary by Bernhard Hain. 2008 summary on orf.at ( Memento from July 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Germanist Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler died at the age of 66 . In: The press . September 8, 2008; Retrieved September 8, 2008.
3. ↑ Schmidt-Dengler: Scientist of the Year 2007 ( Memento from July 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Germanist Schmidt-Dengler is Scientist of the Year 2007.