Paul Heyse (1830-1914)

 

 

German writer, head of the Munich circle of writers, who refused to portray the realistic side of life. Paul Heyse was fluent and very prolific – he published several collections of poems, six novels, over sixty plays, and some 120 short stories. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1910, the first German to be so honored, especially because of his contribution to the development of the modern psychological novella.

 

"In Liebesflammenqual vorm Jahr 

und doch frisch angesengt schon heuer? 

Das alte Sprichwort lügt fürwahr - 

gebrannte Kinder lockt das Feuer."

 

Paul Heyse was born in Berlin, the son of Karl Ludwig Heyse, a notable philologist, and Julie (Saaling) Heyse, the daughter of a prominent Jewish family, a well-to-do court jeweler related to the Mendelssohns. Their home was a salon for artists and writers, one of whom, the art historian Franz Kugler, became a mentor for the young Heyse.

Heyse was educated at the Friedrich Wilhelm-Gymnasium, Berlin, and at Berlin and Bonn universities, where he studied classical literature and philology. During this period he came into contact with Jacob Burckhardt, Theodor Fontane, Adolph Menzel, and Theodor Storm, joining their literary circle. His first poem, 'Frühlingsanfang 1848' was published in the revolutionary year of 1848. In 1852 Heyse received his doctorate – his dissertation dealt with the poetry of the troubadours. With the help of a research grant Heyse went to Italy in 1852 for a year. During this journey he researched on Provençal manuscripts and planned to become a university lecturer. In 1854 the Bavarian king Maximilian II offered Heyse a large stipend and made him a court poet, which enabled him to devote himself entirely to the writing of verse tragedies, novellas, and poems. His first story, DER JUNGBRUNNEN, had appeared in 1850, but he had not published much, except a few romantic stories and verses, one tragedy, and one novella. FRANCESCA DA RIMINI (1850) started his production of tragedies, and was continued with MELEAGER (1854), DIE SABINERINNEN (1859), ELFRIDE (1877), GRAF KÖNINSMARCK (1877), and ALKIBIADES (1880). His dramas include ELISABETH CHARLOTTE (1864), HADRIAN (1865), MARIA MARONI (1865), HANS LANGE (1866), GOLBERG (1868), DIE GÖTTIN DER VERNUFT (1870), and DIE WEIBER VON SCHORNDORF (1881). His plays did not gain a stage success, but in 1884 he was awarded the Schiller Prize.

Heyse settled with his wife, Margaret Kubler, in a villa in Munich, where he remained for the rest of his life. After the death of his first wife in 1862, Hayse married in 1866 Anna Schubart. With his friend Emanuel Geibel he became the leader of a group of writers who opposed the growing trend toward realism. Maximilian died in 1864, and his successor Ludwig II continued the stipend. When Geibel's pension was revoked and he was dismissed from the court by Ludwig II, Heyse resigned in protest but continued to live in Munich in the summer. During each winter he migrated to Gardone on Lake Garda.

In the same year that he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Heyse was made a honorary citizen of Munich. His autobiography, JUGENDERINNERUNGEN UND BEKENNTNISSE, appeared in 1912. He died of pneumonia on April 2, 1914. Heyse's works were soon forgotten by young critics with the rise of naturalism and such writers as Henrik Ibsen and Émile Zola. However, the German scholar Christiane Ullman has argued that, Heyse's "delineation of the condition humaine belongs to the great realist tradition of Balzac and Keller." As a poet Heyse devoted himself to an ideal of beauty, which seemed outdated against impressionistic and naturalistic currents of literature.

Heyse's technical mastery of the novella form is seen in L'ARRABBIATA (1857), a love story set in Italy. He wrote the work in 1855 with others and in 1858 separately. It depicts a fisher maiden who first repulses the advances of a young ferry operator only to fall in love with him. With H. Kurz and others he published DEUTCHER NOVELLENSCHATZ (1870-76, treasury of German novellas). In the preface of the collection Heyse outlined his theory of the novella. He put forth the popular 'falcon theory' in DEUTSCHER NOVELLENSCHATZ (1871) and his book of memoir, JUGENDERINNERUNGEN UND BEKENNTNISSE (1900), the view that each novella should have a distinguishable specific image, 'a silhouette', and a sharp turning point, such as the falcon in Boccaccio's story of that title. Heyse himself wrote well over 100 Novellen. His major collections include NOVELLEN (1855), NEUE NOVELLEN (1858), NEUE NOVELLEN (1862), MERANER NOVELLEN (1864), DAS DING AN SICH (1879), TROUBADOUR-NOVELLEN (1882), UNVERGESSBARE WORTE (1883), HIMMLISCHE UND IRDISCHE LIEBE (1886), and NOVELLEN VOM GARDASEE (1902). Heyse also produced many translations from Italian, Spanish, and English literature.