E.T.A. Hoffmann

E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822)

German Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Composer, Music Critic, Jurist

E.T.A. Hoffmann was one of Germany’s most important authors belonging to the romantic literary movement. He wrote fantasy and horror and was best-known for Nighttime Tales.

Jacques Offenbach’s brilliant fictional opera The Tales of Hoffmann, made him very famous. In it, he was portrayed as a dreamy character.

Biography of E.T.A. Hoffmann in a Nutshell

E.T.A. Hoffmann was born Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, on January 24, 1776, in Königsberg, East Prussia. He came from a family of jurists, with his father, Christoph Ludwig Hoffman, being a barrister.

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Works by E.T.A. Hoffmann:

• The Golden Pot, 1814
• On Beethoven’s Instrumental Music, 1813
• Fantasies, 1814-1815
• The Devil’s Elixir, 1815-1816
• Nighttime Tales, 1817
• Strange Sufferings of a Theatre Director, 1818
• Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, 1819-1821
• Little Sachs, called Cinnaber, 1819
• The Serapion Brothers, 1819-1821

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)

German Playwright and Poet

Bertolt Brecht was a German writer who had great success as a playwright. He developed a form of drama called epic theatre in which ideas, rather than characters, are important. Considered his best known play was Mother Courage and her Children.

Early Life of Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was born on February 10, 1898, in Augsburg, Germany. When he was 19, he enrolled to study medicine at Munich University, but was unable to pursue it as he was conscripted into the army.

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Works by Bertolt Brecht

• Baal, 1918
• Drums in the Night, 1922
• The Threepenny Opera, 1928
• The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany, 1930
• Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, 1938
• Mother Courage and Her Children, 1939
• Poems in Exile, 1942
• Life of Galileo, 1943
• Mother Courage and her Children, 1939
• The Good Woman of Setzuan, 1943
• The Caucasian Chalk Circle, 1948

Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Poet, Novelist and Writer, Famous for “Letters to a Young Poet”

Rainer Maria Rilke was an outstanding lyric poet and one of the most important figures in modern German literature. He belonged to the symbolist movement that used images to represent what a person felt or thought.

Rilke was born on December 4, 1875, in Prague, at that time a part of the Austrian Empire, and now the capital of Czech Republic. He was sent to a military academy, but this was apparently not his interest.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann W. von Goethe

German Poet, Playwright, Novelist and Philosopher

Goethe was one of the greatest German writers, thinkers, and scientific theorists of all time. He was famous for such works as Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther (first novel) and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (second novel.)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on August 28, 1749 in the German city of Frankfurt, to an influential family. He had a comfortable childhood.

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Works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• The Lover’s Caprice, 1767
• The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774
• Clavigo, 1774
• Stella, 1775
• Iphigenia: A Tragedy, 1787
• Egmont, 1787
• Torquato Tasso, 1789
• Roman Elegies, 1788-1790
• Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1795-1796
• Hermann and Dorothea, 1798
• Faust, Part One, 1808, Part Two, 1832
• Italian Journey, 1816-1817
• Wilhelm Meister’s Travels, 1821-1829
• Poetry and Truth, 1811-1831

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Czech German-Language Novelist and Short-Story Writer

Austrian novelist Franz Kafka’s works, strange and disturbing, have had a great influence on 20th-century Western literature, including such writers as Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett. He is best known for “Metamorphosis” and The Trial.

His portrayal of the world is one of a schizophrenic society in which his heroes are often victims of an impersonal world.

Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, in Prague (now in the Czech Republic, then part of Austria).

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Works by Franz Kafka

• The Boilerman, 1913
• Meditations, 1913 (“Betrachtungen”)
• The Judgement, 1913
• The Metamorphosis, 1915 (“Die Verwandlung” or “The Transformation”)
• In the Penal Colony, 1919
• The Country Doctor, 1919

Published After Kafka’s Death

• The Trial, 1925 (“Der Prozess”)
• The Castle, 1926 (“Das Schloss”)
• America, 1927 (“Amerika”)

Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)

German Novelist famous for All Quiet on the Western Front

German writer Erich Maria Remarque is best known for his antiwar novel set during World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front. His other novels, including The Road Back and Flotsam, also treat the themes of war and postwar adjustment.

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Works by Erich Maria Remarque

• The Dream Room, 1920
• Last Stage on the Horizon, 1928
• All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929
• The Road Back, 1931
• Three Comrades, 1937
• Flotsam, 1941
• Arch of Triumph, 1945
• Spark of Life, 1952
• The Black Obelisk, 1956
• Heaven Has No Favorites, 1961
• The Night in Lisbon, 1963
• Shadows in Paradise, 1972 (Published after he passed away)

 

 

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Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann (1875-1955)

German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Philanthropist

Thomas Mann became one of the leading novelists of 20th century Germany at the young age of 25. He was also a short story writer, essayist, social critic, and a philanthropist. A 1929 Nobel Prize winner in literature, he is famous for his novels The Magic Mountain, Joseph and His Brothers, and Doktor Faustus, among others.

One of his legacies is a famous institution in Budapest named in his honour, the Thomas Mann Gymnasium.

Read more… Thomas Mann, Author and Critic

Works by Thomas Mann

• Buddenbrooks, 1901
• Tonio Krüger, 1903
• Royal Highness, 1909
• Death in Venice, 1912
• The Magic Mountain, 1924
• Joseph and His Brothers, 1933-43
• Lotte in Weimar, 1939
• Doktor Faustus, 1947
• Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, 1954