Wilhelm Jensen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wilhelm Jensen (1895)

Wilhelm Jensen (born February 15, 1837 in Heiligenhafen ( Holstein ), † November 24, 1911 in Munich - Thalkirchen ) was a German poet and writer .

Life

Wilhelm Jensen was born out of wedlock to the mayor of Kiel Sven Hanns Jensen and the maid Angel Dorothea Bahr. The unmarried, childless Pauline Moldenhawer adopted him at the age of three. During this phase, Wilhelm Jensen was funded by a guardian who apparently managed the father's legacy. The father died in 1855 as governor of Sylt , the mother six years later. Wilhelm Jensen does not seem to have had close contact with either of his parents in her life.

Until the age of 18, Wilhelm Jensen attended high school in Kiel, from which he allegedly suffered greatly. (In his novels there are repeated small-minded educators who, for example, accuse a student born out of wedlock of his “dishonest origin” and harass him in every possible way.) After a final year of school at the Katharineum in Lübeck up to high school graduation Michaelis 1856 he studied from 1856 to 1860, first medicine , then philosophy and literature in Kiel , Würzburg and Breslau . During his studies in 1856 he became a member of the Teutonia fraternity in Kiel . In 1861 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD.

In response to a letter requesting support from his compatriots Friedrich Hebbel and Emanuel Geibel , he received a friendly invitation from Geibel to Munich in 1863 . There he made his first attempts at writing. Jensen went to the same school desk as Geibel in Lübeck.

In 1864 Jensen met his future wife Marie, born on Fraueninsel in the Chiemsee. Know Brühl. After getting married in Vienna in 1865, the couple moved to Stuttgart . There Jensen became editor of the Schwäbische Volkszeitung . The couple had six children together, four of whom survived. The youngest daughter, Katharina, married Prince Ernst von Sachsen-Meiningen .

Jensen met Wilhelm Raabe in Stuttgart . Although their paths soon parted again, they remained connected in a lifelong friendship even over great spatial distances. In 1869 Jensen took over the management of the Flensburger Norddeutsche Zeitung in Flensburg . Three years later he moved to Kiel, from there in 1876 to Freiburg im Breisgau . Here he met the painter Emil Lugo , with whom he was also a close friend. Shortly after moving in, Jensen's second son , who was born in Freiburg, succumbed to whooping cough , which affected the whole family. Only Marie Jensen was struggling with another illness at that time, which also put her life in danger. In 1880 Jensen lived in Freiburg at Luisenstrasse 11.

Theodor Storm dedicated a poem to Wilhelm Jensen with the opening verse “It is the wind, the old homeland sound” and gave this poem the title “To Wilhelm Jensen”. It appeared around 1885.

The Jensen family lived in Munich from 1888 and had a summer residence in the "Häusle" in St. Salvator near Prien am Chiemsee since 1895 . Between 1892 and 1901 the Jensens made four trips to Italy with Emil Lugo .

Wilhelm and Marie Jensen burial site

The communal grave of Wilhelm and Marie Jensen (d. 1921) lies next to that of Lugo in the Fraueninsel cemetery where Wilhelm and Marie met.

plant

Jensen's work is shaped by historical themes. In his novels, short stories , poems and plays he shows himself to be a man who is connected to the Enlightenment , thinks freely, rebels against etiquette and prudery and is critical of the Christian denominations. Jensen himself did not belong to any denomination. In his works he sometimes quotes the mythologies of other cultures such as the Teutons and Greeks . Several times he expressly takes a stand against anti-Semitic tendencies (e.g. Die Juden von Cölln , 1869) (cf. Richter, no year), probably also because his father-in-law Moritz Brühl was a converted Jew. Jensen's pronounced national sentiment was at the same time an expression of an opposition to the autocratic prince mentality and small states. In his writings and poems you can feel his sensitivity to psychological processes. In many of his works one finds the description of dreams or daydreams, which are often dismissed by the narrator as "meaningless", but whose connection with the action is easily recognizable for the reader.

A central motif of his work spanning over 150 volumes is the description of the relationship between a man and a woman who is one and a half to two years younger than him. At first the two often show dislike for each other, which then dissolves over time and turns into love. Sometimes the story ends with the death of the woman and / or the man or with the permanent separation of the two. The date of this event is repeatedly given as May 2nd - the date of death of Clara Louise Adolphine Witthöfft (* November 16, 1838; † May 2, 1857), identified as Jensen's childhood friend. The poet himself has stated on various occasions that the early death of his childhood friend accompanied him throughout his life and shaped his work. Wilhelm Jensen seems to have been a melancholic who led a very lively existence with committed, close friendships and a pronounced sense of family, but also often, lost in himself, abandoned himself to the hustle and bustle of his memories, inner images and thoughts, which then turned into his novels, short stories and poems flowed into it. The poem Far across is indicative of this wandering between two worlds (In: From changing days , 1878, p. 137 ff).

Gradiva (1903) and Freud's interpretation

Jensen probably designed his life theme most skillfully in the novella Gradiva . The impetus for this novella, which was published in book form in 1903, came from the work of the archaeologist Friedrich Hauser , who in the same year connected the fragment of a relief of a striding young woman, the Gradiva , described by Jensen in the novella , with other relief fragments and illuminated its history. In his typical (self) ironic style, Jensen develops a scenario that lets a somewhat unworldly archaeologist in the ruins of Pompeii come across the supposed ghost of a young Roman woman of Greek origin who died during the eruption of Vesuvius . The really very lively young lady soon realizes that she is dealing with a somewhat confused counterpart and with mischievous skill brings him back down to earth. She turns out to be the old friend of the young scholar.

Based on this novella, Sigmund Freud attempted a first major psychoanalytic literary interpretation ( Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensen's "Gradiva" , 1907). In it he attests to the poet that he portrayed various dreams precisely. In his attempt at interpretation, Freud believes that he can read from the novella that the poet is in love with a physically handicapped sister with a pointed foot.

aftermath

In his Lübeck novel Die Großvaterstadt , published in 1926 , Ludwig Ewers set, among others, Jensen, in the person of Axel Feddersen , a literary monument.

In Freiburg im Breisgau, where Jensen lived with his family for twelve years, a street was named after him. Streets were also named after him in his birthplace Heiligenhafen, in Munich and in Prien.

In Riesebusch in Bad Schwartau one of the local sources was named after him.

The novella "Gradiva" was filmed in 2007 by the French author and director Alain Robbe-Grillet .

“Anyone who has thought of something in advance will be laughed at for years.
Once you finally understand the discovery, everyone takes it for granted. "

- life wisdom

Works (selection)

  • Magister Timotheus , novella, 1866
  • The Jews of Cölln. Novella, 1869
  • Under the hotter sun , novella, 1869
  • Poems. Kröner, 1869
  • Northern lights. 3-volume collection of short stories (including volume 1: Karin von Schweden , Jensen's most successful book by far, with a total circulation of over 260,000), 1872
  • Eddystone , novella, 1872
  • Sun and shade. Novel. 1873 (Representation based on letters that report the event from three very different perspectives.)
  • Nymphaea. Novella, 1874 (Clear echoes of the 'Gradiva'.)
  • From changing days. 1874 (In it p. 137 ff: Fern über über. Concise description of Jensen's enduring bond with his deceased childhood sweetheart.)
  • About the Kaiserstuhl: a novel from the Thirty Years War , 1878 (takes place in the Kastelburg zu Waldkirch and in the Breisach fortress )
  • Wood path dream. A summer night poem. Stuttgart: Hallberger, 1878
  • Karin of Sweden. The immortal Swedish girl. Berlin, 1878
  • After sunset , novel. Berlin: New Year Frey, 1879
  • The Pfeifer von Dusenbach. A romantic story. Leipzig: Elischer, 1884
  • From the days of the Hansa. Three short stories, 1885
  • From quiet times. 4-volume short story collection. 1881–1885 (in Volume 3, 1884: Youth Dreams. According to Jensen himself in a letter to Freud: A biographical representation of the death of his childhood sweetheart, in the novella - as in reality - on May 2nd.)
  • At the exit of the empire , 1886
  • The Black Forest , 1890
  • In compulsion and spell , novel. Dresden: Pierson, 1892
  • Hunnenblut - An incident from the old Chiemgau. Leipzig, 1892
  • Overpower. 2 novellas, 1892 (In it: the red screen , which clearly refers to Jensen's life theme, the melancholy recollection of a deceased childhood sweetheart. In this context, Jensen quotes Hölderlin several times. S. Freud and CG Jung explicitly had this novella in their attempt at interpretation included.) 2015 in a slightly modernized version as well as in English by Createspace / Amazon published as "Übermächte" / "Superior Powers"
  • Astaroth , Mentha. Two novellas from the German Middle Ages. Wroclaw, 1893
  • From sea and sand , novel. Leipzig, 1897
  • Night and day ghosts. 2 novellas, 1900 (in it: The enchanted garden , which contains clear echoes of the 'Gradiva' motif.)
  • Homeland. Novel. Dresden: Reissner, 1901
  • The veil of Maya. Leipzig, 1902
  • The Hohenstaufer exit , history and poetry. Dresden and Leipzig: Reissner, 1902
  • Gradiva. A Pompeian fantasy piece. Dresden and Leipzig: Reissner, 1903
  • Three generations ago. A novel from the Holstein region. Dresden: Reissner, 1904
  • The Descendants A historical novel. Leipzig: Elischer, 1909
  • German men , novel from 1809. Leipzig: Grethlein, 1909
  • Strangers among the people. Roman, Dresden and Leipzig: Reissner, 1911 (Here, too, as in The Red Umbrella , multiple references to Holderlin, whose name of the moon as the stranger among the people was formative in the title.)

literature

  • Waldemar Barchfeld: Wilhelm Jensen as a poet. Münster in Westphalia: Coppenrath 1913.
  • Heinrich Conrad: Wilhelm Jensen as a representative of the historical novel. Giessen: Univ. Diss. 1923.
  • Manfred Dierks: The madness and the dreams. An almost true story from the life of Thomas Mann. Düsseldorf u. a .: Artemis et al. Winkler 1997. ISBN 3-538-07048-2
  • Adalbert Elschenbroich:  Jensen, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , pp. 404-406 ( digitized version ).
  • Gustav Adolf Erdmann: Wilhelm Jensen. His life and poetry. Leipzig: B. Elischer Nachf. 1907.
  • Wilhelm Fehse: Raabe and Jensen. Monument to a friendship. Berlin: Grote 1940.
  • Otto Fraass: Wilhelm Jensen. In his memory. Munich: H. Schmidt 1912.
  • Sigmund Freud: The delusion and dreams in W. Jensen's 'Gradiva'. With the text of the story by Wilhelm Jensen and Sigmund Freud's marginal notes , ed. v. Bernd Urban. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-596-10455-6 .
  • Friedrich Hauser: Disiecta membra neo-Attic reliefs. In: Annual Books of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna, 1903, Volume VI, pp. 79-107.
  • Wilhelm Raabe: Correspondence between Raabe and Jensen. Freiburg i. Br. U. a .: Klemm 1970.
  • Helmut Richter: Wilhelm Jensen and the German Empire 1871. A collection of texts as an attempt at a first approach to an unknown author. Manuscript, undated
  • Walter Rothbarth : Wilhelm Jensen and Flensburg. At the end of his 70th year. Grimm, Flensburg 1907.
  • Michael Rohrwasser , Gisela Steinlechner, Juliane Vogel, Christiane Zintzen : Freud's Pompeian Muse - Contributions to Wilhelm Jensen's novella »Gradiva« . Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85449-101-8 .
  • Klaus Schlagmann: Gradiva: true poetry and delusional interpretation. The family tree and the seven branches, Saarbrücken 2012, ISBN 978-3-9805272-4-8 .
  • Jörg Thunecke: "Not all are free who mock their chains". Reply to Wilhelm Raabe's novel “The Hunger Pastor” in Wilhelm Jensen's “The Jews of Cölln” . In: Raabe reports. Literary studies and literary didactic approaches to the work of Wilhelm Raabe . Sigrid Thielking (ed.). Wiesbaden: Dt. Univ.-Verl., 2002, pp. 57-80. 3-8244-4476-3

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Genzken: The Abitur graduates of the Katharineum in Lübeck (grammar school and secondary school) from Easter 1807 to 1907. Borchers, Lübeck 1907 ( digitized version ), no. 539
  2. ↑ http://www.teuten.de/geschichte/bekannte-teuten/#Jensen
  3. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , pp. 367-370.
  4. ↑ Paul Malthan: Wilhelm Raabe's encounters with Freiburg , In: Badische home 60, Freiburg 1980, p 25-34
  5. ^ Address book of the city of Freiburg for the year 1880, p. 157.
  6. ^ Poem at Aphorismen.de , accessed on October 22, 2017
  7. ^ Street directory of the city of Freiburg, accessed on November 29, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Jensen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Wilhelm Jensen  - Quotes
Wikisource: Wilhelm Jensen  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Jensen, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lyric poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH Heiligenhafen , Holstein
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1911
Place of death Munich - Thalkirchen