Gustav Freytag
Encyclopedia
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
.
Life
Freytag was born in Kreuzburg (Kluczbork)Kluczbork
Kluczbork is a town in southwestern Poland with 26,670 inhabitants , situated in the Opole Voivodeship. It is the capital of Kluczbork County and an important railroad junction. In Kluczbork the major rail line from Katowice splits into two directions - westwards to Wroclaw and northwards to Poznań...
in Silesia
Province of Silesia
The Province of Silesia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1919.-Geography:The territory comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Silesia and the County of Kladsko, which King Frederick the Great had conquered from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th...
. After attending the gymnasium at Oels (Oleśnica)
Olesnica
Oleśnica is a town in the Trzebnickie Hills in southwestern Poland with 36,951 inhabitants . It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
, he studied philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
at the universities of Breslau (Wrocław) and Berlin, and in 1838 received his degree with a dissertation titled Über die Anfänge der dramatische Poesie bei den Germanen. In 1839, he settled at Breslau, as Privatdozent
Privatdozent
Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...
in German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and literature
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
, but organ of German and Austrian
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
. Freytag helped to conduct it until 1861, and again from 1867 till 1870, when for a short time he edited a new periodical, Im neuen Reich. In 1863 he developed what is known as Freytag's pyramid; see Dramatic structure
Dramatic structure
Dramatic structure is the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film. Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics...
.
Debit and Credit
Freytag's literary fame was made universal by the publication in 1855 of his novel, Soll und Haben (Debit and Credit), which was translated into almost all European languages. It was translated into English by Georgiana HarcourtGeorgiana Harcourt
Georgiana Charlotte Frances Harcourt was the daughter of the Archbishop of York. Her correspondence has been published, but she is primarily known for the novels of Gustav Freytag and the theological works she translated from German originals...
in 1857.
It was hailed as one the best German novels and praised for its sturdy but unexaggerated realism. In some passages, it is quite humorous. Its main purpose is the recommendation of the German middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
as the soundest element in the nation, but it also has a more directly patriotic intention in the contrast it draws between the homely virtues of the German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, the shiftlessness of the Pole
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
and the rapacity of the Jew. As a Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
n, Freytag had no great love for his Slavic neighbors, authored anti-Polish pamphlets and being a native of a province which in his mind owed everything to the Kingdom of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
, he was naturally an earnest champion of Prussian hegemony over Germany. His powerful advocacy of this idea in his Grenzboten gained him the friendship of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose neighbor he had become, on acquiring the estate of Siebleben near Gotha
Gotha (town)
Gotha is a town in Thuringia, within the central core of Germany. It is the capital of the district of Gotha.- History :The town has existed at least since the 8th century, when it was mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne as Villa Gotaha . Its importance derives from having been chosen in...
.
Die verlorene Handschrift
At the duke's request, Freytag was attached to the staff of the Crown Prince of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian WarFranco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
of 1870–71, and was present at the Battles of Worth
Battle of Wœrth
The Battle of Wörth, also known as the Battle of Reichshoffen or as the Battle of Fröschweiler, should more correctly be called the second battle of Wörth, as the first one occurred on 23 December 1793. This second battle of Wörth took place on 6 August 1870 in the opening stages of the...
and Sedan
Battle of Sedan
The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War on 1 September 1870. It resulted in the capture of Emperor Napoleon III and large numbers of his troops and for all intents and purposes decided the war in favour of Prussia and its allies, though fighting continued under a new French...
. Before this, he had published another novel, Die verlorene Handschrift (1864), in which he endeavoured to do for German university life what Soll und Haben had done for commercial life. The hero is a young German professor, who is so wrapped up in his search for a manuscript by Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
that he is oblivious to an impending tragedy in his domestic life. The book was, however, less successful than its predecessor.
Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit
Between 1859 and 1867, Freytag published in five volumes Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, a work on popular lines, illustrating the history and manners of Germany. In 1872, he began a work with a similar patriotic purpose, Die Ahnen, a series of historical romances in which he unfolds the history of a German family from the earliest times to the middle of the 19th century. The series comprises the following novels, none of which, however, reaches the level of Freytag's earlier books:- Ingo und Ingraban (1872)
- Das Nest der Zaunkönige (1874)
- Die Brüder vom deutschen Hause (1875)
- Marcus König (1876)
- Die Geschwister (1878)
- Aus einer kleinen Stadt (1880).
Other works
Freytag's other works include:- Die Technik des Dramas (1863), in which he explained a system for dramatic structureDramatic structureDramatic structure is the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film. Many scholars have analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics...
, later named Freytag's Pyramid - a biography of the Baden statesman Karl MathyKarl MathyKarl Mathy , was a Badensian statesman.He was born at Mannheim. He studied law and politics at Heidelberg, and entered the Baden government department of finance in 1829...
(1869) - an autobiographyAutobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
(Erinnerungen aus meinen Leben, 1887) - his Gesammelte Aufsätze, chiefly reprinted from the Grenzboten (1888); Der Kronprinz wed die deutsche Kaiserkrone; and Erinnerungsbidtter (1889)
Complete works
Freytag's Gesammelte Werke were published in 22 volumes, at LeipzigLeipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
(1886–1888); his Vermischte Aufsatze have been edited by E. Elster, autobiography mentioned above, the lives by C. Alberti (Leipzig, 1890) and F. Seiler (Leipzig, 1898).