GEORGE, STEFAN. - Poet, b. at Rüdesheim (Romania) on 12 July 1868, d. in Switzerland, near Lausanne, on 4 Dec. 1933. One of the last three distinguished German poets, of the triad which, in opposition to naturalism, reconnected itself, by nobility of spirit and of intent, to the great German poetic tradition.
After completing long journeys abroad and philological studies in Berlin and art history in Munich, G. — who bore within himself a native fundamental lyrical core, a religious feeling for art and an aristocratic, austere, heroic style of life, abhorring the crowd as well as the mechanism and materialism that annihilate the individual, with in addition a resentful Nietzschean voluntarism — oriented himself toward symbolism and the formula of art for art's sake, of which he became the propagator in Germany with the Blätter für die Kunst (1892-1919), but singularly, gradually, toward the conception of the poet as priest, indeed as seer. While remaining to the very last a cultivator of formal beauty, there is undeniable, in his production, an evolution toward a greater concreteness, both as regards the object and its spiritual content, though he admitted nothing other than the autonomous value of poetry, divorced from psychological or historical factors. His religion of poetry is, naturally, anti-Christian.
Editions: Gesamt-Ausgabe der Werke (18 vols., Berlin 1927-34).
Bibliography9 worksChr. Geyer, Die Religion St. G. I, Rudolfstadt 1924; F. Gundolf, St. G., 3rd ed., Berlin 1930; Joh. Mumbauer, St. G. in katholischer Schau,
BIBL.: Chr. Geyer, Die Religion St. G. I, Rudolfstadt 1924; F. Gundolf, St. G., 3rd ed., Berlin 1930; Joh. Mumbauer, St. G. in katholischer Schau, in Literarischer Handweiser, 66 (1930); L. Vincenti, St. G., in Baretti, August 1927; I. Maione, St. G., in Contemporanei di Germania, Turin 1931; W. Rosengarth, Nietzsche u. G., Leipzig 1934; H. Lutzeler, St. G. u. das Christentum, in Köln. Volkszeitung, 28 May 1932; F. Bergenthal, Das Werk G. I., Breslau 1934; M. Pensa, St. G., Bologna 1935 (with a rich bibliography).
Guerra, Giovanni. “George, stefan.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, col. 64. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/george-stefan.
MLA
Guerra, Giovanni. “George, stefan.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, col. 64. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/george-stefan.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec6_george_stefan,
author = {Guerra, Giovanni},
title = {George, stefan},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VI},
pages = {64},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/george-stefan}
}
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