Emil Staiger

Emil Staiger (8 February 1908, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland - 28 April 1987, Horgen, Switzerland) was a Swiss historian, writer, Germanist and Professor of German Studies at the University of Zurich.[1]

Grave of Emil Staiger at Witikon Cemetery in Zurich

Life

After graduating from school, Emil Staiger first studied theology before switching to German and classical philology. After studying at the Universities of Geneva, Zurich and Munich, he received his doctorate in Zurich in 1932 with a thesis on Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. From 1932 to 1934 he was a member of the National Front (Switzerland), from which he publicly distanced himself in 1935. In 1934 he completed his time at the University of Zurich with a thesis on Schelling, Hegel and Hölderlin. That same year, he became a private lecturer in German literature at Zurich. In 1943, he was appointed to a professorship.[2] Staiger's importance in the field of German literature was founded in his widely acclaimed publications Die Zeit als Einbildkraft des Dichters (1939), Basic Concepts of Poetics (1946), The Art of Interpretation (1955) and in his three-volume Goethe Studies (1952–1959).[3][4][5]

Critical style

Staiger's style of literary criticism was opposed to extra-literary concepts such as positivism and intellectual history, sociology or psychoanalysis. For Staiger, concentration on the literary texts themselves was most important. He wrote that “the poet's word, the word for its own sake, is valid, nothing behind it, about or below it". This sensitive interpretation method, often described with the saying “understand what grabs us”, developed into a distinct Germanic style of studying literature. His work, The Art of Interpretation describes his method of literary criticism.[4]

Influence

Staiger's 11 o'clock lectures, which inspired students from all over Europe as well as the literary public to attend, were spoken about far beyond the University of Zurich. At the same time Staiger was a renowned translator of ancient and modern languages, and translated Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Tasso, Poliziano and Milton into German. As a controversial theater and music critic as well as a columnist, he influenced Zurich's cultural life for decades.[6][7] He wrote a column for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a Swiss German-language newspaper.

Prizes

Notes
  1. "Staiger, Emil". Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (in German). 10 January 2013. Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  2. Wögerbauer, Werner (2012-10-25). "Emil Staiger (1908–1987)". Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Germanistik in Porträts (in German). De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110807264.239. ISBN 978-3-11-080726-4.
  3. "Basic Concepts of Poetics By Emil Staiger, Edited by Marianne Burkhard, Luanne T. Frank, and Translated by Janette C. Hudson". www.psupress.org. Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  4. Staiger, Emil; Spitzer, Leo; Lang, Berel; Ebel, Christine (1990). "A 1951 Dialogue on Interpretation: Emil Staiger, Martin Heidegger, Leo Spitzer". PMLA. 105 (3): 409–435. doi:10.2307/462892. ISSN 0030-8129. JSTOR 462892. S2CID 170253476.
  5. Willoughby, L. A. (1956-04-01). "Emil Staiger, Goethe 1749-1786". The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory. 31 (2): 149–153. doi:10.1080/19306962.1956.11786839. ISSN 0016-8890.
  6. "Emil Staiger, Vor- und Feindbild". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  7. Matt, Von Peter von. "Hingerissen und erbittert | NZZ". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  8. "Nomination archive | Emil Staiger". NobelPrize.org. 2020-04-01. Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  9. "Professor Dr Emil Staiger FBA". The British Academy. Retrieved 2021-07-02.
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