Five of the Most Precocious German Authors

The culture blog Flavorwire had a good series recently on 10 of the Most Precocious Authors in Literary History, which, however, did not include one German writer. Since I love lists, I've created my own top five precocious writers - those whe were doing serious work before the age of 20. Of course, I use the term "German authors" loosely, since three out of the five are Austrian. Please add other names to this list in the comments.

Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (10 March 1788 – 26 November 1857) was perhaps the most precocious of the precocious group of Romantic poets. At the age of nineteen he wrote the poem Das zerbrochene Ringlein (In einem kühlen Grunde) where the themes and melodic style that would shape Eichendorff's poetry in the decades to come are already on full display.

 

 

Georg Trakl (1887 -1914) was nearly as precocious as his literary idol Arthur Rimbaud. His two one-act plays Totentag and Fata Morgana were performed in the Salzburger Stadttheater when Trakl was only 18. His most famous poems - with the exception of his last great war poem Grodek - were finished before he turned 25. His second collection of poems - Sebastian im Traum - appeared shortly after Trakl died from an overdose of cocaine in 1914.  

 

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) didn't find his true lyric voice until he was able to leave Prague behind. But René (as he was called until he met Lou Andreas-Salomé in 1897) published his first collection of poems Leben und Lieder at the age of nineteen.  His virtuosity is apparent in these early poems and in his Florenzer Tagebuch.  Already he was wrestling with the same themes - the reconciliation of beauty and suffering, life and death - that he would much later capture in perfect lyric form in the Sonnette an Orpheus. 

 

 

Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874 - 1929) took literary Vienna by storm at the age of 16.  His genius was such that he was stalked by Stefan Georg at his gymnasium.  Stefan Zweig recalls young von Hofmannsthal in Die Welt von Gestern: "The emergence of the young Hofmannsthal is noteworthy as a miracle of early perfection: in the history of literature I can't think of any example - other than Rimbaud or Keats - of such mastery of language at a young age."

Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956) demonstrated his ambition to create epic theater at the age of 15 by writing and publishing  a drama of the greatest epic story ever told - Die Bibel.  He also showed early promise for agit-prop by writing antiwar pieces that nearly got him kicked out of school. 

Comments

[koogleschreiber]

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German scientist, satirist and Anglophile. At the age of 19 he began writing his 'waste books' (Sudelbücher). Today he is regarded as one of the best aphorists in the Western intellectual history. As a satirist, Lichtenberg takes high rank among the German writers of the 18th century. His biting wit involved him in many controversies with well-known contemporaries, such as the Swiss physiognomist Johann Kaspar Lavater whose science of physiognomy he ridiculed... Schopenhauer admired Lichtenberg greatly for what he had written in his notebooks. He called Lichtenberg one of those who "think ... for their own instruction", who are "genuine thinkers for themselves in both senses of the words". Other admirers of Lichtenberg's notebooks include Nietzsche, Freud and Wittgenstein. Lichtenberg is not read by many outside Germany. Leo Tolstoy held Lichtenberg's writings in high esteem, expressing his perplexity of "why the Germans of the present day neglect this writer so much." The Chinese scholar and wit Qian Zhongshu quotes the Waste books in his works several times... A crater on the Moon is named Lichtenberg in his honour.
(wiki)

My favorite quote:
Books are like mirrors. When an ape looks into it, no apostle can look out.

[David]

@koogleschreiber,

Great catch, thanks! Lichtenberg was also a favorite Kurt Tucholsky, the patron saint of this blog.

[A Facebook User]

What about August Schiller? I just started reading Wilhelm Tell, and his style is very exciting. Also discovered my new favorite word in German through him: "Bub".

[David]

If you are referring to Friedrich Schiller, yes - he was quite precocious - started writing his great play Die Räuber at the age of 17, although it wasn't performed on stage until he was 22.

[A Facebook User]

How on earth did I get that wrong? I must have mixed his name up with August Schleicher.