Rudolf Kassner (11 September 1873 in

Velké Pavlovice Velké Pavlovice () is a town in Břeclav District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 3,100 inhabitants. Geography Velké Pavlovice is located about north of Břeclav. Most of the municipal territory lies the Ždáni ...

– 1 April 1959 in

Sierre Sierre (; ; ) is the capital municipality of the district of Sierre, located in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. It has a population of 18,020. Sierre is nicknamed City of the Sun () for its average of 300 days of sunshine a year. It is t ...

, Switzerland) was an Austrian writer, essayist, translator and cultural philosopher. Although stricken as an infant with poliomyelitis, Kassner traveled widely to northern Africa, the Sahara, India, Russia, Spain, and throughout Europe. His translations of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...

introduced this English romantic poet to German-speaking audiences. His literary career covered six decades, including a period of isolation during the

Nazi 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 ...

years in Vienna. His writings on

physiognomy Physiognomy () or face reading is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without referenc ...

reflect his effort to understand the problems of modernity and Man's subsequent disconnectedness from time and place. His later autobiographical writings suggest a brilliant literary mind attempting to make sense of a chaotic post-nuclear world. He was nominated for the

Nobel prize for literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in t ...

thirteen times.

Biography

Before his birth, Rudolf Kassner's family emigrated to

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

(at the time part of

Austro-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

) from

Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...

. His father, Oskar Kassner, was a landowner and factory owner, descended from government officials and businessmen. His maternal ancestors were

peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising f ...

. Kassner regarded himself as a German-Slavic mixture, having inherited German ''Blut'' (German: blood) from his mother and a Slavic ''Geist'' (German: spirit) from his father (''Das physiognomische Weltbild'', 116ff.).

Student life

In 1892, Kassner enrolled at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

where he set out to study German

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

, and

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. He spent the last two semesters, in 1895 and 1896, in Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the nationalist historian

Heinrich von Treitschke Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke (; 15 September 1834 – 28 April 1896) was a German historian, political writer and National Liberal member of the Reichstag during the time of the German Empire. He was an extreme nationalist, who favored Ger ...

. Kassner, too, was an enthusiastic theater-goer. This formed the basis for later reflections on acting and the role of the actor, important for Kassner's physiognomic worldview, the return from the world of numbers to the kingdom of images. Hans Paeschke has stressed the importance of Kassner's understanding of ''Gestaltung'' for this "physiognomy ''against'' physiognomy". In 1896, Kassner returned to Vienna and completed his studies with a doctoral dissertation on ''Der ewige Jude in der Dichtung'' (''The Eternal Jew in Poetry''), which he completed in 1897.

References

General references

;Collected works * Rudolph Kassner, Sämtliche Werke, Bände I – X, Ernst Zinn und Klaus E. Bohnenkamp (Eds), Günther Neske, Pfüllingen, (1969–1991). ;Correspondence * Rudolph Kassner, Briefe an Tetzel, Ernst Zinn und Klaus E. Bohnenkamp (Eds), Günther Neske, Pfullingen, 1979. * Bohnenkamp, Klaus E. (Ed.), Rainer Maria Rilke und Rudolph Kassner, Freunde im Gespräch: Briefe und Dokumente, Insel, Memmingen, 1997.

External links

* * *
Kassner als Leser Heideggers
' by Hartmut Cellbrot (1998) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kassner, Rudolf 1873 births 1959 deaths Austrian male writers Austrian people of Moravian-German descent Moravian-German people People from Břeclav District Schiller Memorial Prize winners Writers from Austria-Hungary