Stefan George
From Metapedia
Stefan Anton George (July 12, 1868 – December 4, 1933) was a German poet, editor and translator.
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[edit] Biography
George was born in Bingen. He spent time in Paris, where he was among the writers and artists who attended the Tuesday soireés held by the poet Stéphane Mallarmé. He began to publish poetry in the 1890s. George founded and edited an important literary magazine called Blätter für die Kunst. He was also at the center of an influential literary and academic circle known as the Georgekreis, which included many of the leading young writers of the day, (e.g. Friedrich Gundolf and Ludwig Klages). In addition to sharing cultural interests, the circle reflected mystical and political themes.
Stefan George died near Locarno. He identified with an extreme conservatism in politics and was present at National Socialist celebrations of his sixty-fifth and final birthday held in Berlin in 1933.
[edit] Work
George's poetry is characterized by an aristocratic and remote ethos; his verse is formal in style, lyrical in tone, and often arcane in language, being influenced by Greek classical forms, in revolt against the realist trend in German literature at the time. Believing that the purpose of poetry was distance from the world—he was a strong advocate of art for art's sake, and was influenced by Nietzsche—George's writing had many ties with the French Symbolist movement. He was in contact with many of its representatives, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine.
George was an important bridge between the 19th century and German modernism, even though he was a harsh critic of the then modern era. He experimented with various poetic metres, punctuation, obscure allusions and typography.
Algabal is one of his best remembered collections of poetry, if also one of his strangest; the title is a reference to the effete Roman emperor Elagabalus. George was also an important translator; he translated Dante, Shakespeare and Baudelaire into German.
[edit] Das neue Reich
George's late and seminal work Das neue Reich (the new empire) was published in 1928. He dedicated the work, including the Geheimes Deutschland ("secret germany") written in 1922, to Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg[1]. It outlines a new form of society ruled by hierarchical spiritual aristocracy.
[edit] Influence
George was thought of by his contemporaries as a prophet and a priest, while he thought of himself as a messiah of a new kingdom that would be led by intellectual or artistic elites, bonded by their faithfulness to a strong leader. His poetry emphasized self-sacrifice, heroism and power, and he thus gained popularity in National Socialist circles. The group of writers and admirers that formed around him were known as the Georgekreis.
George's poetry was a major influence on the music of the Second Viennese School of composers, particularly during their Expressionist period. Arnold Schönberg set George's poetry in such works as his String Quartet No. 2 Op. 10 of 1908 and The Book of the Hanging Gardens Op. 15 of 1909, while his student Anton Webern made use of George's verse in his early choral work Entflieht auf leichten Kähnen Op. 2 as well as in two sets of songs, Opp. 3 and 4 of 1909, and in several posthumously published vocal works from the same period.
[edit] Online texts
[edit] Bibliography
Selected German titles
- Algabal (1892)
- Das Jahr der Seele ('The Year of the Soul', 1897)
- Der siebente Ring ('The Seventh Ring', 1907)
- Der Stern des Bundes ('The Star of the Covenant', 1914)
- Das neue Reich ('The New Empire', 1928)
