Hölderlin, Kleist, and Nietzsche by Stefan Zweig

The image of Goethe recurs here as the ultimate upholder of Zweig's own ideals: scientist and artist, receptive to world culture, supremely rational and prudent. Zweig's choice of subjects reflects a division in his own soul. In Hölderlin, Kleist, and Nietzsche, Zweig's subjects here are respectively a lyric poet, a dramatist and writer of novellas, and a philosopher. Stefan Zweig builds a composite picture of the European mind through intellectual portraits selected from among its most representative and influential figures. Most recently, his works provided the inspiration for 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel.īaumeister der welt - Der Kampf mit dem Dämon = The Struggle with the Daemon: Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig He also wrote a psychological novel, Ungeduld des Herzens (1938 Beware of Pity), and translated works of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Emile Verhaeren.

His stories include those in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925 Conflicts). He wrote full-scale, intuitive rather than objective, biographies of the French statesman Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935), and others. He achieved popularity with Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928 The Tide of Fortune), five historical portraits in miniature. Zweig's essays include studies of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky ( Drei Meister, 1920 Three Masters) and of Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Nietzsche ( Der Kampf mit dem Dämon, 1925 Master Builders).

Zweig's interest in psychology and the teachings of Sigmund Freud led to his most characteristic work, the subtle portrayal of character. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. He and his second wife committed suicide in 1942. Among his most famous works are Beware of Pity, Letter from an Unknown Woman, and Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles. He produced novels, plays, biographies, and journalist pieces. Stefan Zweig was one of the world's most famous writers during the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the U.S., South America, and Europe.

Hölderlin, Kleist, and Nietzsche by Stefan Zweig