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Karl Gutzkow
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Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow (born in Berlin, died in Sachsenhausen) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.
kow grew up in a rather poor family: his father, a brick layer by trade, worked in the stables of the Berlin court.
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Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow (born in Berlin, died in Sachsenhausen) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.
Life
Gutzkow grew up in a rather poor family: his father, a brick layer by trade, worked in the stables of the Berlin court. Gutzkow studied theology and philosophy under Hegel and Schleiermacher.
While still a student, he began his literary career by the publication in 1831 of a periodical entitled Forum der Journalliteratur. This brought him to the notice of Wolfgang Menzel, who invited him to Stuttgart to assist in the editorship of the Literaturblatt. At the same time he continued his university studies at Jena, Heidelberg and Munich. In 1832 he published anonymously at Hamburg Briefe eines Narren an eine Närrin, and in 1833 appeared at Stuttgart Maha-Guru, Geschichte eines Gottes, a fantastic and satirical romance. In 1835 he went to Frankfort, where he founded the Deutsche Revue. While Gutzkow started out as a collaborator of Wolfgang Menzel, he ended up his adversary.
In the same year his novel Wally die Zweiflerin appeared. From its publication of which may be said to date the school of writers who, from their opposition to the literary, social and religious traditions of romanticism, received the name of “Young Germany.” The work was directed specially against the institution of marriage and the belief in revelation; and whatever interest it might have attracted from its own merits was enhanced by the action of the German federal diet, which condemned Gutzkow to three months' imprisonment, decreed the suppression of all he had written or might yet write, and prohibited him from exercising the functions of editor within the German confederation. This was used as a pretext in order to ban the works of many other progressive writers, amongst them Heinrich Heine.
During his term of imprisonment
at Mannheim, Gutzkow employed himself in the composition
of his treatise Zur Philosophie der Geschichte (1836). On
obtaining his freedom he returned to Frankfort, whence he
went in 1837 to Hamburg. Here he inaugurated a new epoch
of his literary activity by bringing out his tragedy Richard
Savage (1839), which immediately made the round of all the
German theatres. Of his numerous other plays the majority
are now (1911) neglected; but a few have obtained an established
place in the repertory of the German theatre especially the
comedies Zopf und Schwert (1844), Das Urbild des Tartüffe (1847),
Der Königsleutnant (1849) and the blank verse tragedy, Uriel
Acosta (1847). In 1847 Gutzkow went to Dresden, where he
succeeded Tieck as literary adviser to the court theatre. Meanwhile
he had not neglected the novel. Seraphine (1838) was
followed by Blasedow und seine Söhne, a satire on the educational
theories of the time. Between 1850 and 1852 appeared Die
Ritter vom Geiste, which may be regarded as the starting-point
for the modern German social novel. Der Zauberer von Rom is
a powerful study of Roman Catholic life in southern Germany.
The success of Die Ritter vom Geiste suggested to Gutzkow the
establishment of a journal on the model of Dicken's Household
Words, entitled Unterhaltungen am häuslichen Herd, which first
appeared in 1852 and was continued till 1862. In 1864 he had an
epileptic fit, and his productions show henceforth decided traces
of failing powers. To this period belong the historical novels
Hohenschwangau (1868) and Fritz Ellrodt (1872), Lebensbilder
(1870-1872), consisting of autobiographic sketches, and Die
Söhne Pestalozzis (1870), the plot of which is founded on the
story of Kaspar Hauser. On account of a return of his nervous
malady, Gutzkow in 1873 made a journey to Italy, and on his
return took up his residence in the country near Heidelberg,
whence he removed to Frankfort-on-Main, dying there on the
16th of December 1878.
Gutzkow was the editor of the Telegraph für Deutschland and became one of Germany's eminent critics. The novels Die Ritter vom Geist (1850/51) and Der Zauberer von Rom (1856/61) were very successful; Gutzkow used his new Simultantechnik in them.
Gutzkow was never a revolutionary, and he became more conservative with age. He was one of the first Germans who tried to make a living by writing. With his play Uriel Acosta, and other works, he stood up for the emancipation of the Jews.
Adaptations
His comedy in 5 acts Zopf und Schwert (1844) received two adaptations; in 1926 Aafa Film AG made the movie , and Edmund Nick used it for his operetta Über alles siegt die Liebe (Love Conquers Everything) (1940, libretto by Bruno Hardt-Warden).
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