Hans Mayer
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Hans Mayer (19 March 1907 in Cologne – 19 May 2001 in Tübingen; pseudonym: Martin Seiler[1]) was a German literary scholar. Mayer was also a jurist and social researcher and was internationally recognized as a critic, author and musicologist.
Life
Hans Mayer was born in an upper-class
.He studied jurisprudence, political science, history and philosophy in
From 1937 to 1939, Mayer was a member of the Collège de Sociologie, founded by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris and Roger Caillois in 1937. There he held a lecture about the secret political societies in German Romanticism and demonstrated how these secret societies already anticipated Nazi symbolism. Other exiles at the Collège were Walter Benjamin and Paul L. Landsberg.
After the end of the war, he returned to Germany in 1945. The Americans made him the cultural editor of the German news agency, DENA, the predecessor of the DPA, and later the chief political editor of Radio Frankfurt.
In 1948, he and his friend
His relationship with those in power in the GDR was characterized by more friction as of 1956. He resigned in 1963 and did not return to the GDR after a visit to a publisher in Tübingen. In 1965, he was appointed to a newly created chair for German literature at the University of Hannover. He held this chair until his retirement in 1973. After that, he lived in Tübingen as an honorary professor. As he grew older, he lost his eyesight, but he was still able to dictate his texts. For that reason, his publications extend well into his old age.
Work
The work of Hans Mayer includes more than forty volumes. He studied
While he was in exile in 1936, he began the advance work for his great work about Georg Büchner. This work about Büchner was later recognized by the
He released the collection of essays, Zur deutschen Literatur der Zeit, in 1962. In 1986, he followed this volume with the book, Das unglückliche Bewusstsein – Zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte von Lessing bis Heine. Ein Deutscher auf Widerruf is the title of his three-volume memoires of 1982.
The investigation, Außenseiter, which appeared in 1975, was considered by many to be his main work. In this volume, he deals with the literary portrayal of three groups, which have commonly been discriminated against in history: women, male homosexuals and Jews. He had his own experiences with belonging to two of these groups – as a Jew and as a homosexual.
Der Turm von Babel of 1991 is an obituary on the GDR. Its key sentence is frequently seen to be: "Das schlechte Ende widerlegt nicht einen möglicherweise guten Anfang" – "The bad end doesn't disprove a possibly good beginning." The GDR was the better of the two German states to him for a long time.
The last book published by Mayer is Erinnerungen an Willy Brandt from 2001.
Tributes and criticism
When it comes to acknowledging the work on Hans Mayer, these points are especially emphasized:
- In the middle of Stalinism, he defended authors such as Kafka, Proust, James Joyce and Ernst Bloch.
- In his lectures, it was important to him to investigate literature time after time with a view to whether it was suitable to promote humanity.
- His special attention for the non-compliant and Außenseiter (outsider) especially stands out.
- Mayer was an important supporter for many young authors (for example, for Uwe Johnson).
Hans Mayer was an
Hans Mayer, along with
Selected literary works
- Karl Marx und das Elend des Geistes. Studien zur neuen deutschen Ideologie. Westkulturverlag Anton Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1948.
- Richard Wagner, 1959
- Zur deutschen Literatur der Zeit, 1962
- Georg Büchner und seine Zeit, 1972
- Außenseiter, 1975
- Ein Deutscher auf Widerruf, 1982
- Wir Außenseiter, 1983
- Widersprüche einer europäischen Literatur, 1984
- Das unglückliche Bewusstsein – Zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte von Lessing bis Heine, 1986
- Der Turm von Babel, 1991
- Versuch über Hans Henny Jahnn, 1994
- Erinnerungen an Willy Brandt, 2001
- Briefe 1948–1963. Publ. and annotated by Mark Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2006
References
- ^ "Professoren der Uni Leipzig 1945 -1993". research.uni-leipzig.de. Archived from the original on 21 November 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
- ^ "Hans Mayer". Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse.
All references are in German
- Volker Ladenthin: Hans Mayer und das "Unglückliche Bewußtsein". In: Volker Ladenthin: Moderne Literatur und Bildung. Hildesheim-New York 1991. pp. 136–162
- Clemens Berger: Der späte Hans Mayer. Aspekte im Lebens-Werk eines Außenseiters, 2003 (dissertation, Vienna)
- Stephan Moebius: DIE ZAUBERLEHRLINGE. Soziologiegeschichte des COLLÈGE DE SOCIOLOGIE 1937-1939 (Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, die Geheimgesellschaft 'Acéphale' und die Wirkungen auf Foucault, Lévinas, Nancy, Maffesoli, Baudrillard und Derrida). 552 pages, Constance: UVK, 2006, ISBN 3-89669-532-0
External links
- Hans Mayer in the German National Library catalogue
- Obituary for Hans Mayer
- Recordings with Hans Mayer in the Online Archive of the Österreichische Mediathek (Interviews in German). Retrieved 2 September 2019