Deleatur yhe: Created page

2026-09-06T03:25:56Z

Created page

New page

{{Short description|Austrian writer, poet, painter and pedagogue (1805–1868)}}
{{Redirect|Stifter|the Austrian academic|David Stifter|the Austrian actor|Magnus Stifter}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox writer
| image = StifterGrandauer1862.jpg
| birth_date = 23 October 1805
| birth_place = [[Oberplan]], [[Kingdom of Bohemia]]
| death_date = 28 January 1868
| death_place = [[Linz]], [[Austria-Hungary]]
| resting_place = St. Barbara-Friedhof in [[Linz]], Austria
| occupation = Novelist, poet, painter, pedagogue
| language = German
| education = [[University of Vienna]]
| period = 1830–1868
| genre = [[Bildungsroman]]
| subject =
| movement =
| notable_works = ''[[Bergkristall]]'', ''[[Der Nachsommer]]'', ''[[Witiko (novel)|Witiko]]''
| spouse = Amelia Mohaupt (1837–1868)
| partner =
| children =
| relatives =
| awards =
| signature = Signature of Adalbert Stifter.jpg
| signature_alt =
| website =
}}

'''Adalbert Stifter''' ({{IPA|de|ˈʃtɪftɐ|lang}}; 23 October 1805 – 28 January 1868) was an Austrian writer, poet, painter and [[pedagogy|pedagogue]] of [[German Bohemians|German Bohemian]] origin. He was notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world.

==Life==
[[File:STIFTHS.jpg|thumb|left|The house where Adalbert Stifter was born in Oberplan, today's Horní Planá]]

Born in Oberplan in [[Kingdom of Bohemia|Bohemia]] (now [[Horní Planá]] in the [[Czech Republic]]), he was the eldest son of Johann Stifter, a wealthy [[linen]] [[weaver (occupation)|weaver]], and his wife, Magdalena. Johann died in 1817 after being crushed by an overturned wagon. Stifter was educated at the '' Benedictine Gymnasium'' at [[Kremsmünster Abbey|Kremsmünster]], and went to the [[University of Vienna]] in 1826 to study law. In 1828 he fell in love with Fanny Greipl, but after a relationship lasting five years, her parents forbade further correspondence, a loss from which he never recovered.

[[File:Amalia Mohaupt.jpg|thumb|right|Amalia Mohaupt]]
In 1835 he became engaged to Amalia Mohaupt, and they married in 1837, but the marriage was not a happy one. Stifter and his wife, unable to conceive, tried adopting three of Amalia's nieces at different times. One of them, Juliana, ran away several times and finally disappeared, only to be found drowned in the [[Danube]] four weeks later.

As a man of strong [[liberalism|liberal]] convictions who welcomed the [[1848 revolutions]] and allowed his name to go forward as a candidate in the [[Frankfurt Parliament]], even suspected by others of being a radical, the cornerstone of Stifter's philosophy was [[Bildung]] (personal and cultural maturation through education).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Swales |first1=Martin |title=Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study |url=https://archive.org/details/adalbertstifterc0000swal |url-access=registration |date=1984 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/adalbertstifterc0000swal/page/2 2–3]|isbn=9780521259729}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mayer |first1=Mathias |title=Adalbert Stifter: Erzählen als Erkennen |date=2015 |publisher=Reclam Verlag |pages=16–18}}</ref> Instead of becoming a state official, he became a [[tutor]] to the aristocrats of [[Vienna]], and was highly regarded as such. His students included Princess Maria Anna [[House of Schwarzenberg |von Schwarzenberg]] and the son of German statesman [[Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich |Klemens von Metternich]], [[Richard Klemens, Prince von Metternich |Richard von Metternich]]. He also made some money from selling paintings, and published his first story, "Der Condor", in 1840. It was an immediate success, inaugurating a steady writing career.

Stifter visited [[Linz]] in 1848, and moved there permanently a year later, where he became editor of the ''[[Linzer Zeitung]]'' and the ''[[Wiener Bote]]''. In 1850 he was appointed supervisor of elementary schools for [[Upper Austria]]. His physical and mental health began to decline in 1863, and he became seriously ill from [[cirrhosis]] of the liver in 1867. In deep depression, he slashed his neck with a razor<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,156086,00.html|title=Suicides are Spiteful|work=Der Spiegel|date=10 September 2001 |access-date=2 May 2009}}</ref> on the night of 25 January 1868 and died three days later.

==Work==
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2011}}
[[File:Stifterhaus - Arbeitszimmer.jpg|thumb|Stifter's study in his Linz house]]

Stifter's work is characterized by the pursuit of beauty; his characters strive to be moral and move in gorgeous landscapes luxuriously described. Evil, cruelty, and suffering rarely appear on the surface of his writing, but [[Thomas Mann]] noted that "behind the quiet, inward exactitude of his descriptions of Nature in particular there is at work a predilection for the excessive, the elemental, and the catastrophic, the pathological." Although considered by some to be one-dimensional compared to his more famous and realistic contemporaries, his visions of ideal worlds reflect his informal allegiance to the [[Biedermeier]] movement in literature. As Carl Schorske puts it, "To illustrate and propagate his concept of [[Bildung]], compounded of [[Benedictine]] world piety, German [[humanism]], and Biedermeier conventionality, Stifter gave to the world his novel ''Der Nachsommer''".<ref>{{Cite book |last = Schorske|first = Carl E.|title = Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture|publisher = Cambridge University Press|location = Cambridge|year = 1981|page= 283|isbn = 0-521-28516-X}}</ref>

The majority of his works are long stories or short novels, many of which were published in multiple versions, sometimes radically changed. His major works are the long novels ''[[Der Nachsommer]]'' and ''[[Witiko (novel)|Witiko]]''.

Stifter's ''Der Nachsommer'' (1857) and [[Gottfried Keller]]'s ''[[Seldwyla Folks]]'' ({{langx|de|Die Leute von Seldwyla}}) were named the two great German novels of the 19th century by [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].<ref>''[http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB/WS-109 Der Schatz der deutschen Prosa.]'' eKGWB/WS-109 — ''[[Menschliches, Allzumenschliches]]'' II: § WS — 109. Erste Veröff. 18 December 1879.</ref> ''Der Nachsommer'' is considered one of the finest examples of the [[Bildungsroman]], but received a mixed reception from critics at the time. [[Christian Friedrich Hebbel|Friedrich Hebbel]] offered the crown of Poland to whoever could finish it and called Stifter a writer only interested in "beetles and buttercups". The excessive detail for which Hebbel derided the novel is according to Christine Oertel Sjögren, "precisely a source of fascination for modern scholars, who seize upon the number of objects as the distinguishing characteristic of this novel and accord it high esteem because of the very significance of the 'things' in it. Far from being extraneous elements as Hebbel regarded them, the art and nature objects provide a rich setting of beauty and a mirror-background to the human story in the foreground." [3]:20

''Witiko'' is a historical novel set in the 12th century, a strange work panned by many critics, but praised by [[Hermann Hesse]] and Thomas Mann.{{Citation needed|date=September 2016}} [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]] found great comfort from his reading of ''Witiko'' while in Tegel Prison under Nazi arrest.<ref>''Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 8: Letters and Papers from Prison'' (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009), pp. 175, 278. {{ISBN|978-0-8006-9703-7}}</ref>

==Influence==
[[File:Székely Portrait of Adalbert Stifter 1863.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Adalbert Stifter (1863)]]
In the German edition of his ''Reminiscences'', [[Carl Schurz]] recalls his meeting with the daughter of the keeper of the Swiss inn he was staying at whose favorite book was Stifter's ''Studien''.<ref>Carl Schurz, ''Lebenserinnerungen bis zum Jahre 1852'', Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1911, ch. 7, [http://de.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Seite:Schurz_Lebenserinnerungen_b1_s160.jpg&oldid=579412 p. 160] (at German Wikisource)</ref> This incident occurred prior to 1852.

He was named as an influence by [[W. G. Sebald]], and both [[W. H. Auden]] and [[Marianne Moore]] admired his work, the latter co-translating ''[[Bergkristall]]'' as ''[[Rock Crystal (novella)|Rock Crystal]]'' with [[Elizabeth Mayer]] in 1945. Auden included Stifter in his poem "[[Academic Graffiti]]" as one of the celebrities, literary and otherwise, captured in a [[clerihew]]: Adalbert Stifter / Was no weight-lifter: / He would hire old lags / To carry his bags.<ref>{{Cite book |last = Auden|first = W. H.|editor = Edward Mendelson|year = 1991|title = Collected Poems|location = New York|publisher = Vintage International|page= 684|isbn = 0-679-73197-0}}</ref>

In [[Hermann Hesse]]'s ''[[Steppenwolf (novel)|Steppenwolf]]'', the main character Harry Haller wonders "whether it isn't time to follow the example of Adalbert Stifter and have an accident while shaving". [[Thomas Mann]] was also an admirer of Stifter, calling him "one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most strangely gripping narrators in world literature."In the satirical novel ''Old Masters'' by [[Thomas Bernhard]], the main character Reger gives a vitriolic rant disparaging Stifter's fiction.

Rilke<ref name="Ryan1999">{{cite book|author=Ryan, Judith|title=Rilke, Modernism and Poetic Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ENHKHPVRt_EC&pg=PA35|page=35|date=25 November 1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-42666-4}}</ref> and Hugo von Hofmannsthal<ref name="Hofmannsthal2011">{{cite book|first=Hugo von|last=Hofmannsthal|others=David S. Luft (editor and translator)|title=Hugo Von Hofmannsthal and the Austrian Idea: Selected Essays and Addresses, 1906-1927|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kIR6dLbPMGQC&pg=PA11|pages=11–12|year=2011|publisher=Purdue University Press|isbn=978-1-55753-590-0}}</ref> were deeply indebted to his art.{{citation needed|date=November 2011}}

==Recent production==
In 2007 German theater director [[Heiner Goebbels]], inspired by works of Adalbert Stifter, composed and directed a musical installation called ''Stifters Dinge'' (''Stifter's Things''), which premiered in 2007 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, in [[Lausanne]], Switzerland.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.heinergoebbels.com/en/archive/works/complete/view/4|title=Stifters Dinge / Stifter's Things|work=Heiner Goebbels' website|access-date=27 November 2011}}</ref>

==Works==
[[File:A Stifter-statue.JPG|thumb|200px|A statue of Stifter in [[Horní Planá]], Czech Republic]]
[[File:Adalbert Stifter Gedenktafel in Frymburk (CZ).JPG|thumb|Stifter plaque in [[Frymburk]], Czech Republic]]
[[File:DPAG-2005-AdalbertStifter.jpg|thumb|German stamp commemorating 200th anniversary of Stifter's birth]]

* ''Julius'' (1830)
* ''[[Der Condor]]'' ("The Condor") (3 vols. 1839)
* ''[[Feldblumen]]'' ("Field Flowers") (1841)
* ''[[Das alte Siegel]]'' ("The Ancient Seal") (1844)
* ''[[Die Narrenburg]]'' ("Castle Crazy" and "The Castle of Fools") (1844)
* ''[[Aus dem alten Wien]]'' ("Tales of Old Vienna and Other Prose") (1844)
* ''[[Studien]]'' ("Studies and the Forest Trail" and "Pictures of Rural Life in Austria and Hungary") (6 vols. 1844–1845)
** ''[[Das Heidedorf]]'' ("The Village on the Heath" and "The Heather Village") (1840)
** ''[[The High Forest|Der Hochwald]]'' (1842)
** ''[[Abdias (novel)|Abdias]]'' (1842)
** ''[[Brigitta (novella)|Brigitta]]'' ("Marosheley") (1843)
** ''[[The Bachelors (Stifter novel)|Der Hagestolz]]'' ("The Recluse" or "The Bachelors") (1844){{refn|group=lower-alpha|According to David Luke, "The word ''Hagestolz'' . . . literally means '(elderly) confirmed bachelor,' though with a suggestion also of hedged-off seclusion."}}
** ''[[Der Waldweg]]'' ("The Forest Path," "The Forest Trail," and "The Mountain Path") (1844)
** ''[[Der Waldsteig]]'' (1845)
* ''[[Der beschriebene Tännling]]'' (1846)
* ''[[Der Waldgänger]]'' ("The Wanderer in the Forest") (1847)
* ''[[Der arme Wohltäter]]'' (1848)
* ''[[Prokopus]]'' (1848)
* ''[[Die Schwestern]]'' ("The Sisters") (1850)
* ''[[Motley Stones|Bunte Steine]]'' ("Motley Stones", "Colorful Stones," "Bright Stones" and "Mount Gars or, Marie's Christmas Eve" and "Limestone") (2 vols., 1853)
** ''[[Granit (novel)|Granit]]'' ("Granite")
** ''[[Limestone (Stifter)|Kalkstein]]'' ("Limestone")
** ''[[Turmalin]]'' ("Tourmaline")
** ''[[Bergkristall]]'' ("Rock Crystal")
** ''[[Katzensilber]]'' ("Muscovite")
** ''[[Bergmilch]]'' ("Moonmilk")
* ''[[Der Nachsommer]]'' ("Indian Summer") (1857)
* ''[[Die Mappe meines Urgrossvaters]]'' (My Grandfather's Notebook") (1864)
* ''[[Nachkommenschaften]]'' (1865)
* ''[[Witiko (novel)|Witiko]]'' (3 vols., 1865–1867) concerning [[Witiko of Prčice]] and the [[House of Rosenberg]]
* ''[[Der Kuß von Sentze]]'' (1866)
* ''[[Erzählungen]]'' ("Novels and Tales") (1869)
* ''[[Die Mappe meines Urgrossvaters]]'' (My Grandfather's Notebook") (Erster und Zweiter Band (Unvollendet) (1939)

===Works in translation===
* ''[https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%22castle%20crazy%22%20creator%3Astifter Castle Crazy; and, Maroshely, The Village on the Heath]'', tr. unknown 1851.
* ''[[Rock Crystal (novel)|Rock Crystal]]'', tr. Lee M. Hollander, 1914.
* ''Rock Crystal'', tr. [[Elizabeth Mayer]] and [[Marianne Moore]], 1945. Re-issued by [[Pushkin Press]] 2001 and by the ''[[New York Review of Books]]'' 2008.
* ''[[Brigitta (novella)|Brigitta]]'', tr. Ilsa Barea, 1960.
* ''Limestone and Other Stories'', [[Harcourt, Brace & World]], tr. [[David Luke]], 1968.
* ''The Recluse'', [[Jonathan Cape]], Cape Editions, tr. [[David Luke]], 1968.<ref>Listing of Cape Editions in ''The Death of Lysanda'', [[Yitzhak Orpaz]], London: [[Jonathan Cape]], 1970, p. 110.</ref>
* ''[[Der Nachsommer|Indian Summer]]'', [[Peter Lang (publishing company)|Peter Lang]], tr. [[Wendell Frye]], 1985.
* ''Brigitta and Other Tales'', [[Penguin Press]], tr. [[Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly]], 1995.
* ''[[Witiko (novel)|Witiko]]'', [[Peter Lang (publishing company)|Peter Lang]], tr. [[Wendell Frye]], 1999.
* ''The Bachelors'', [[Pushkin Press]], tr. David Bryer, 2009.
* ''Tales of Old Vienna and Other Prose'', [[Ariadne Press]], tr. Alexander Stillmark, 2016.
* ''Motley Stones'', [[New York Review Books]], tr. Isabel Fargo Cole, 2021

== See also ==
* [[List of Austrian writers]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* Blackall, Eric (1948). ''Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Frederick, Samuel (2012). ''Narratives Unsettled: Digression in Robert Walser, Thomas Bernhard, and Adalbert Stifter''. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press.
* Gump, Margaret (1974). ''Adalbert Stifter''. New York: Twayne Publishers.
* Palm, Kurt (1999). ''Suppe Taube Spargel sehr sehr gut''. Freistadt: Löcker (about Stifter's excessive eating habits) ({{ISBN|3-85409-313-6}})
* [[Carl Emil Schorske|Schorske, Carl E.]] (1981). ''Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Sjögren, Christine Oertel (1972). ''The Marble Statue as Idea: Collected Essays on Adalbert Stifter's Der Nachsommer''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
* Swales, Martin & Erika Swales (1984). ''Adalbert Stifter: A Critical Study''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

==Further reading==
* [[Hannah Arendt|Arendt, Hannah]] (2007). "Great Friend of Reality". In: ''Reflections on Literature and Culture''. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, pp. 110–114.
* Carroll Jeter, Joseph (1996). ''Adalbert Stifter's Bunte Steine''. New York: Peter Lang.
* Devlin, F. Roger (2008). [http://www.mmisi.org/MA/50_02/devlin.pdf "Adalbert Stifter and the 'Biedermeier' Imagination]," ''Modern Age'', Vol. L, No. 2, pp. 110–119.
* Grossmann Stone, Barbara S. (1990). ''Adalbert Stifter and the Idyll: A Study of Witiko''. New York: Peter Lang.
* Ragg-Kirkby, Helena (2000). ''Adalbert Stifter's Late Prose: The Mania for Moderation''. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Adalbert Stifter}}
{{Wikisourcelang|de|Adalbert Stifter|Adalbert Stifter}}

'''WMF project links'''
* {{CathEncy|wstitle=Adalbert Stifter}}
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Stifter, Adalbert}}

'''General sources'''
* [http://www.adalbertstifter.at/ Adalbert Stifter website] {{in lang|de}}

'''Works online'''
* {{Gutenberg author| id=2329| name=Adalbert Stifter}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Stifter, Adalbert|name=Adalbert Stifter|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Adalbert Stifter}}
* {{Librivox author |id=313}}

{{Adalbert Stifter}}
{{German literature}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stifter, Adalbert}}
[[Category:1805 births]]
[[Category:1868 deaths]]
[[Category:1868 suicides]]
[[Category:People from Horní Planá]]
[[Category:19th-century Austrian writers]]
[[Category:19th-century Austrian poets]]
[[Category:19th-century Austrian painters]]
[[Category:Austrian male writers]]
[[Category:Austrian male poets]]
[[Category:Biedermeier writers]]
[[Category:German Bohemian people]]
[[Category:Members of the Frankfurt Parliament]]
[[Category:Suicides by sharp instrument]]
[[Category:Suicides in Austria-Hungary]]
[[Category:University of Vienna alumni]]
[[Category:Poets from the Austrian Empire]]
[[Category:Painters from the Austrian Empire]]
[[Category:Writers from the Austrian Empire]]
[[Category:Male suicides]]
[[Category:19th-century Austrian male painters]]
[[Category:19th-century male poets]]

Adalbert Stifter - Revision history

Deleatur yhe: Created page