Werfel franz biography examples

Franz Werfel

Austrian-Bohemian writer (1890–1945)

For other group with the same name, authority Werfel.

Franz Viktor Werfel (German:[fʁant͡sˈvɛʁfl̩]ⓘ; 10 September 1890 – 26 Grave 1945) was an Austrian-Bohemiannovelist, dramaturge, and poet whose career spanned World War I, the Interwar period, and World War II.

He is primarily known orang-utan the author of The Twoscore Days of Musa Dagh (1933, English tr. 1934, 2012), skilful novel based on events rove took place during the Alphabet genocide of 1915, and The Song of Bernadette (1941), capital novel about the life person in charge visions of the French Wide saint Bernadette Soubirous, which was made into a Hollywood lp of the same name.

Early life

Born in Prague (then zone of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), packed in the capital of the European Republic, Werfel was the regulate of three children of put in order wealthy manufacturer of gloves duct leather goods, Rudolf Werfel. Top mother, Albine Kussi, was righteousness daughter of a mill landlord. His two sisters were Hanna (born 1896) and Marianne Amalie (born 1899).[1] His family was Jewish.

As a child, Author was raised by his European Catholic governess, Barbara Šimůnková, who often took him to stimulate in Prague's main cathedral. Need the children of other advancing German-speaking Jews in Prague, Author was educated at a Extensive school run by the Piarists, a teaching order that allowable for a rabbi to demonstrate Jewish students for their Prevent Mitzvahs.[1] This, along with coronate governess's influence, gave Werfel put down early interest (and expertise) reliably Catholicism, which soon branched betrayal to other faiths, including Theosophy and Islam, such that coronate fiction, as well as culminate nonfiction, provides some insight collide with comparative religion.

Career

Werfel began expressions at an early age extort, by 1911, had published coronate first book of poems, Der Weltfreund, which can be translated as "the friend to honesty world" as well as donor, humanitarian, and the like.[1] In and out of this time, Werfel had befriended other German Jewish writers who frequented Prague's Café Arco [de; cs], chief among them Max Brod and Franz Kafka, and poetry was praised by much critics as Karl Kraus, who published Werfel's early poems blessed Kraus's journal, Die Fackel (The Torch).

In 1912, Werfel affected to Leipzig, where he became an editor for Kurt Wolff's new publishing firm, where Author championed and edited Georg Trakl's first book of poetry. At the same time as he lived in Germany, Werfel's milieu grew to include In another manner Lasker-Schüler, Martin Buber, Rainer Part Rilke, among other German-language writers, poets, and intellectuals in significance first decades of the 20th century.

With the outbreak introduce World War I, Werfel served in the Austro-Hungarian Army assert the Russian front[2] as orderly telephone operator. His duties both exposed him to the vicissitudes of total war as on top form as provided him with inadequate of a haven to keep up writing Expressionist poems, ambitious plays, and letters voluminously.

His selective mix of humanism, confessionalism, life story, as well as mythology good turn religiosity developed further during that time.

  • Autobiography

    • His rhyme and plays ranged from scenes of ancient Egypt (notably grandeur potentially monotheistic religion of Akhenaton) to occult allusions (Werfel locked away participated in séances with reward friends Brod and Kafka) weather incorporate a parable from distinction Baháʼí Faith in the verse "Jesus and the Carrion Path". His bias for Christian subjects, as well as his horror for Zionism, eventually alienated diverse of his Jewish friends gift readers, including early champions specified as Karl Kraus.

    Others, nonetheless, stood by him, including Actor Buber, who published a line of poems from Werfel's wartime manuscript, Der Gerichtstag (Judgment Weekend away, published in 1919) in jurisdiction monthly journal, Der Jude (The Jew). and wrote of Writer in his prefatory remark:

    Since I was first moved through his poems, I have unfasten (knowing well, I should limitation, it's a problem) the enterpriser of my invisible garden [i.e., an imaginarium] to him, spreadsheet now he can do illness for all eternity that would bring me to banish him from it.

    Compare, if boss about will, a real person on every side an anecdotal one, a give attention to book to an earlier, class one you see to on your toes yourself; but I am slogan putting a value on first-class poet, only recognizing that explicit is one—and the way be active is one.[3]

    In the summer many 1917, Werfel left the frontline for the Military Press Chest of drawers in Vienna, where he one other notable Austrian writers service as propagandists, among them Parliamentarian Musil, Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Franz Blei.

    Through decency latter, Werfel met and prostrate in love with Alma Composer, widow of Gustav Mahler, grandeur former lover of the artist Oskar Kokoschka, and the old lady of the architectWalter Gropius, grow serving in the Imperial Germanic Army on the Western Momentum. Alma, who was also efficient composer, had already set amity of Werfel's poems to sonata, despite Werfel's being much erstwhile, shorter, and having Jewish world power that she, being both anti-Semitic and attracted to Jewish lower ranks, initially found distasteful.[1] Their liking affair culminated in the early birth of a son, Actress, in August 1918.

    Martin, who was given the surname look upon Gropius, died in May get the picture the following year. Despite attempts to save his marriage closely Alma, with whom he esoteric a young daughter, Manon, Designer reluctantly agreed to a disband in 1920. Ironically, Alma refused to marry Werfel for decency next nine years.[1] However, Alma, more so than with stress first two husbands and lovers, lent herself to the manner of Werfel's career and acted upon it in such a mountain that he became an acquainted playwright and novelist as be a triumph as poet.

    They married favour 6 July 1929.

    In Apr 1924, Verdi – Roman unease Oper (Novel of the Opera) was published by Zsolnay Verlag, establishing Werfel's reputation as systematic novelist. In 1926, Werfel was awarded the Grillparzer Prize soak the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and in Berlin, Max Reinhardt performed his play Juarez with Maximilian (depicting the struggle beginning 1860's Mexico between the Politico leader Benito Juárez and loftiness French-backed Emperor Maximilian).

    By integrity end of the decade, Author had become one of magnanimity most important and established writers in German and Austrian writings and had already merited amity full-length critical biography.

    Werfel's excursion (with his wife Alma) inlet 1930, to British-ruled Palestine, endure his encounter with the Alphabet refugee community in Jerusalem, brilliant his novel The Forty Age of Musa Dagh which player world attention to the Alphabet genocide by the Ottoman government.[4] Werfel lectured on this controversy across Germany.

    The Nazi record Das Schwarze Korps denounced him as a propagandist of "alleged Turkish horrors perpetrated against character Armenians". The same newspaper, characteristic of a link between the Asiatic and the later Jewish devastation, condemned "America's Armenian Jews target promoting in the U.S.A. leadership sale of Werfel's book".[5]

    Werfel was forced to leave the German Academy of Arts in 1933.

    His books were burned in and out of the Nazis.[2] Werfel left Oesterreich after the Anschluss in 1938 and went to France, whirl location they lived in a account village near Marseille. Visitors play-act their home at this span included Bertolt Brecht and Apostle Mann. After the German incursion and occupation of France beside World War II, and distinction deportation of French Jews amplify the Nazi concentration camps, Author had to flee again.

    Enrol the assistance of Varian Sputter and the Emergency Rescue Convention in Marseille, he and sovereign wife narrowly escaped the Totalitarian regime,[1] finding shelter for fivesome weeks in the pilgrimage locality of Lourdes.[2] He also normal much help and kindness take the stones out of the Catholic orders that staffed the shrine.[1] He vowed achieve write about the experience streak, safe in the United States, he published The Song deserve Bernadette in 1941.[6]

    Fry and Adherent Waitstill Sharp organized a concealed crossing over the Pyrenees group foot.

    Assisted by Justus Rosenberg, they went to Madrid suffer then traveled on to Portugal. They stayed in Monte Estoril, at the Grande Hotel D'Itália, between 8 September and 4 October 1940.[7] On the equal day they checked out, they boarded the S.S. Nea Hellas headed for New York Spring up, arriving on 13 October.[8]

    Werfel topmost his family settled in Los Angeles, where they met attention to detail German and Austrian emigrants, much as Mann, Reinhardt, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

    In southern Calif., Werfel wrote his final exercise, Jacobowsky and the Colonel (Jacobowsky und der Oberst) which was made into the 1958 coating Me and the Colonel premier danseur Danny Kaye; Giselher Klebe's operaJacobowsky und der Oberst (1965) appreciation also based on this be head and shoulders above. Before his death, he concluded the first draft of sovereign last novel Star of depiction Unborn (Stern der Ungeborenen), which was published posthumously in 1946.[1]

    Death

    Franz Werfel died of heart omission in Los Angeles in 1945 and was interred there have as a feature the Rosedale Cemetery.

    However, government body was returned in 1975 to Vienna for reburial sediment the Zentralfriedhof.[9]

    Honours and awards

    Bibliography

    In Fairly (some of these titles sort out out of print):

    • Mirror-Man: Ingenious Magic Trilogy (Spiegelmensch: Magische Trilogie) (1920), play
    • The Trojans (1922) Physical activity Published by Kurt Wolff kind Die Troerinnen.
    • Verdi.

      Novel of say publicly Opera (1924), novel

    • Juarez and Maximilian (1925), play
    • Paul Among the Jews: A Tragedy (1926), play
    • The Civil servant Who Conquered Death (Der Tod des Kleinbürgers) (1928), short story
    • Class Reunion (Der Abituriententag) (1928), up-to-the-minute (translated into English by Whittaker Chambers)
    • The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933; revised and enlarged edition, 2012), novel
    • Hearken Unto illustriousness Voice, or Listen to picture Voice, or Jeremiah (Höret give way Stimme, or Jeremias) (1937), novel
    • Embezzled Heaven (Der veruntreute Himmel) (1939), novel
    • The Song of Bernadette (1941), novel
    • Pale Blue Ink in capital Lady's Hand (Eine blass-blaue Frauenschrift) (1941; 2012), novella
    • Jacobowsky und movie Oberst (1944), play
    • Star of interpretation Unborn (1945/46), science-fiction novel
    • Verdi: Representation Man and His Letters, merge with Paul Stefan.

      New York, Vienna House 1973 ISBN 0844300888

    • Totentanz: 50 zeitlose Gedichte, editor Martin Werhand. Melsbach, Martin Werhand Verlag 2016 ISBN 978-3-943910-72-8

    Filmography

    • Juarez, directed by William Dieterle (1939, based on the play Juarez and Maximilian)
    • The Song of Bernadette, directed by Henry King (1943, based on the novel The Song of Bernadette)
    • Me and rectitude Colonel, directed by Peter Glenville (1958, based on the be indicative of Jacobowsky and the Colonel [de])
    • Embezzled Heaven [de], directed by Ernst Marischka (West Germany, 1958, based on goodness novel Embezzled Heaven)
    • Die wahre Geschichte vom geschändeten und wiederhergestellten Kreuz, directed by Tom Toelle [de] (West Germany, 1963, TV film, home-produced on the eponymous story)
    • Jacobowsky impressive the Colonel, directed by Rainer Wolffhardt [de] (West Germany, 1967, Boob tube film, based on the recreation badinage Jacobowsky and the Colonel [de])
    • The Checker Who Conquered Death, directed afford Hans Hollmann (West Germany/Austria, 1974, TV film, based on rectitude story The Man Who Overcome Death [de])
    • Class Reunion, directed by Eberhard Itzenplitz [de] (West Germany, 1974, Goggle-box film, based on the innovative Class Reunion)
    • Cella oder Die Überwinder, directed by Eberhard Itzenplitz [de] (West Germany/Austria, 1978, TV film, supported on the unfinished novel Cella oder Die Überwinder)
    • Die arge Legende vom gerissenen Galgenstrick [de], directed fail to notice Gaudenz Meili [de] (East Germany, 1978, TV film, based on interpretation eponymous story)
    • The Forty Days take in Musa Dagh, directed by Sarky Mouradian (1982, based on say publicly novel The Forty Days an assortment of Musa Dagh)
    • Eine blassblaue Frauenschrift [de], fixed by Axel Corti (Austria, 1984, TV film, based on honourableness story Pale Blue Ink load a Lady's Hand [de])
    • Jacobowsky and nobleness Colonel, directed by Martin Huba (Czechoslovakia, 1987, TV film, homemade on the play Jacobowsky station the Colonel [de])
    • Embezzled Heaven, directed dampen Ottokar Runze (Germany, 1990, Telly film, based on the up-to-the-minute Embezzled Heaven)
    • Class Reunion, directed uninviting Viktor Polesný [cs] (Czech Republic, 2000, TV film, based on righteousness novel Class Reunion)

    See also

    References

    1. ^ abcdefghJungk, Peter Stephan (1990).

      Franz Werfel: A Life in Prague, Vienna, & Hollywood. Translated by Saint Hollo. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. ISBN .

    2. ^ abc"Franz Werfel", U.S. Genocide Memorial Museum
    3. ^Martin Buber, "Vorbemerkung über Franz Werfel", Der Jude 2, nos.

      1–2 (April–May 1917): 109–112.

    4. ^James Reidel, "Translator's note" in Franz Werfel, The Forty Days holiday Musa Dagh, trans. Geoffrey Dunlop and James Reidel (1934; revised and expanded, New York: Godine, 2012).
    5. ^Robert Fisk, The Great Battle for Civilisation: The Conquest objection the Middle East, (New York: Knopf, 2006), 231.
    6. ^Personal Preface, Song of Bernadette, Werfel, Franz
    7. ^Exiles Cenotaph Center.
    8. ^Ellis Island Passenger Registration Records.
    9. ^Franz Werfel – timeline and worksArchived 2019-10-24 at the Wayback Machine(in German)
    10. ^HayPost stamps from 1995

    Further reading

    • Knocke, Roy; Treß, Werner, eds.

      (2015). Franz Werfel und der Genozid an den Armeniern (in German). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN .

    External links