Käte Hamburger (September 21, 1896 in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

– April 8, 1992 in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

) was a

Germanist German studies is an academic field that researches, documents and disseminates German language, German literature, literature, and culture in its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies therefore often focus on Culture ...

, literary scholar and philosopher. She was a professor at the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...

. Hamburger earned her

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in 1922 in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

. Expelled by the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

because of her Jewish heritage, she immigrated to Sweden in 1934, where she lived until 1956, earning her living as a language teacher, journalist and writer. She resumed her university career on her return to Germany, writing about

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

and

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...

, among others. Her examination of the ontological status of literary objects in ''Die Logik der Dichtung'' (1957; translated into English as ''The Logic of Literature,'' 1973) established her renown in the field of

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...

. Along with Eberhard Lämmert and Franz Karl Stanzel, Hamburger contributed in the 1950s to a reorientation of Germanistics in Germany in the direction of a rational and analytic methodology.

Literature

* Käte Hamburger: ''Die Logik der Dichtung'', Stuttgart 1994. Fourth edition, . First published 1957. English translation by Marilynn J. Rose, ''The Logic of Literature'', 2nd rev. ed., Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1973. * Käte Hamburger: ''Wahrheit und ästhetische Wahrheit'', Stuttgart 1979, * Käte Hamburger: ''Das Mitleid'', Stuttgart 1985, * ''Querelles. Jahrbuch für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung'', vol. 8, Johanna Bossinade and Angelika Schaser (Hg.): ''Käte Hamburger. Zur Aktualität einer Klassikerin'', Göttingen 2003,

External links

Literatur von und über Käte Hamburger
in the catalogue of die Deutsche Bibliothek
Fem-Biographie: Käte Hamburger
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamburger, Kate German women writers 1896 births 1992 deaths Schiller Memorial Prize winners Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg