Leopold Schefer

Leopold Schefer

Leopold Schefer (July 30, 1784 in Muskau – February 13, 1862 in Muskau), German poet, novelist, and composer, was born in a small town in Upper Lusatia (then under Saxon rule), only child of a poor country doctor.

Biography

Leopold Schefer was educated, privately, by his parents, later on by the principal of the Muskau primary school, Andreas Tamm, afterwards in a small private school of the former hofmeister of the local Earl of Callenberg, Johann Justus Röhde. From 1799 up to 1805 he visited the secondary school (“Gymnasium”) at Bautzen. During this time he started writing diaries, poems, and compositions, the last under the influence of his teacher Johann Samuel Petri. After that he returned to Muskau, helping his widowed mother along, while writing and composing.

During Napoleon's failed campaign in Russia, 1812, Schefer was appointed manager of the big estates of his newly-won friend, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, doing well under hard circumstances until 1816. The prince, recognizing the literary abilities of his friend, encouraged his early poetical efforts. Having visited England together with Pückler for studying landscape gardens (and being deeply impressed by Eliza O'Neill on the stage), Schefer studied composition under Antonio Salieri in Vienna 1816-17, and travelled to Italy, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, and Turkey. Schefer returned in 1819 to Muskau, where he remained for all his life, married, fathering one son and four daughters, due to his literary success in easy - after the lost German revolution 1848/49 in poor - circumstances, following his literary pursuits until his death, 1862.[1]

Works

Vigilien, by Leopold Schefer

Schefer wrote a large number of novels, short novels, and narratives which appeared mostly in literary almanacs. Some of his novels have been published in English, as e.g. Künstlerehe (1828, with deep insights into marriage life).[2]

Schefer was well known for his novels and their observative power, but even more for a single volume of poems, Laienbrevier (1834–1835). These, owing to their warmth of feeling, keen psychology, and descriptions of the beauties of nature, at once established his fame as a poet. This vein he followed in later years with the poems Vigilien (1843), Der Weltpriester (1846), and Hausreden (1869). Encouraged by his friend, the poet Max Waldau (1822–1855), he published Hafis in Hellas (Hamburg, 1853) and Koran der Liebe (Hamburg, 1855) containing with their glowing descriptions of the East love poetry of a realistic and high order.[3] But, due to his pantheistic beliefs, his poetry and novels were barred from the curricula of the Prussian elementary and secondary schools, which resulted in his being forgotten after 1910.

Having been a scholar of Antonio Salieri, Schefer raised interest as a composer only in the very last years, especially when his 22nd birthday was celebrated in Bad Muskau, as a part of the Lausitzer Musiksommer.

Selected publications

There are no studies about Schefer in English, but consult Bettina Clausen & Lars Clausen, 1985.

Publications at lifetime

Posthumously

References

  1. ↑ See Bettina and Lars Clausen: Zu allem fähig, 2 vols., Bangert & Metzler, Frankfurt on Main 1985.
  2. ↑ Bettina Clausen: Leopold Schefer Bibliographie. Frankfurt am Main 1985
  3. ↑  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Schefer, Leopold". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  4. ↑ See Julian Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert, vol. ii.; Emil Brenning Leopold Schefer (1884), and Ludwig Geiger in: Dichter und Frauen (1896).

Further reading

External links

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