Stefan Zweig (1881165438+1October 28th-1February 22nd, 942) is an Austrian novelist, poet, playwright and biographer. Representative works include the short story Chess Story, Letter from an Unknown Woman, the novel Anxiety of the Mind, the memoir Yesterday's World, the biography Three Masters and the portrait of a political figure.
Born into a wealthy Jewish family, Zweig studied philosophy and literature in Vienna and Berlin in his youth, and later traveled around the world, making friends with romain rolland and Freud, which was deeply influenced. He writes poems, novels, plays, literary theories and biographies, and is most famous for his achievements in biographies and novels. Engaged in anti-war work during World War I, 1934 was expelled by the Nazis and exiled to Britain and Brazil. 1942 committed suicide in Brazil on February 22nd.
Chinese name: Stefan Zweig.
Stefan Zweig
Nationality: Austria
Ethnic group: Jews
Place of birth: Vienna, Austria
Date of birth:1881165438+1October 28th.
Date of death:1Feb. 22, 942
Occupation: writer, poet
Graduate school: University of Berlin
Representative works: Letter from an Unknown Woman, Anxiety of Mind, Yesterday's World, Chess Story.
Character experience
188 1 year165438+1October 28th, Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary. Zweig's family is a wealthy Jewish merchant family. 1898 17-year-old Zweig published his first poem in a magazine; 1899, graduated from Zweig Middle School.
1900, published 200 poems; After studying philosophy and literature in Vienna University and Berlin, I came into contact with the works of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and studied and translated the poems of Baudelaire, Wei Erlun and Vaharun.
190 1 published the first collection of poems, Yin Xian Ji, containing 50 poems. 1902, transferred to Berlin University to study philosophy; Vienna's New Freedom published its first novel, Travel, which was based on the Bible. Publish Baudelaire's poems; Edit Valhallan's poetry and songs.
1904, graduated from university, with a doctorate in "Tanner Philosophy"; Later, he served as the editor-in-chief of New Freedom and published the first collection of novels, Erica Wald's Love, including four novels: Snow, Travel, Erica Wald's Love and Miracle of Life. Later, I went to Western Europe, North Africa, India, America and other places.
/kloc-published the monograph Wei Lan in 0/905; 1906, the second book of poetry, The Garland of Early Years, came out. 1907, the first poetic drama Tess was published and staged the following year; 19 10 published the monograph Emile Valhallen.
19 1 1 year, meet Freud and keep friendship; The tragedy "A House by the Sea" came out and was staged the following year. The second collection of novels, First Experience-Four Stories of Children's Country, was published, including The Story of a Hazy Night, The Tutor, The Burning Secret and The Story of Summer. Observing the adult world dominated by lust from the perspective of children in the embryonic stage of youth, exploring and depicting the spiritual world of people driven by lust has become a keynote of his later works. He called this collection of novels his first comic book.
19 12 years, the one-act drama "The Comedian" came out and was staged in the same year. 19 14, the first world war broke out; Published a letter to a foreign friend.
19 16, bought a house in Salzburg, Mozart's former residence; Meet the female writer Friedrich Wen Feng Denise; He created the drama Jeremiah based on the Book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, which was the first anti-war drama premiered in Switzerland.
19 18 published articles "believing in defeatism" and novels "shackles"; The first world war ended in the failure of the oder river; After 19 19, he lived in seclusion in Salzburg for a long time and buried himself in writing.
1920, married Wen Denise, divorced and had two children, and wrote three masters. 1922 published the second collection of serial novels, including Tropical Madman, some enchanted evening, Letter from Unknown Woman, Lost Heart, etc. It is about a year-long lust, which shows the mentality of adult men and women being controlled by lust. They committed the so-called "passion crime" under the subconscious drive.
1926 published the article "a quick glance"; 1927 published the third collection of novels, Emotional Puzzlement, which included six short stories, such as Emotional Puzzlement, Twenty-four Hours of a Woman's Life, and Decline of a Heart, and wrote about the lust in her later years. The protagonists are all experienced people. When they are driven by lust or accidentally bumped into each other, their hearts are trembling and their consciousness is flowing.
1928, he was invited to the former Soviet Union, met Gorky, and completed the writer's biography "Architect of the World", which consists of three books: "Three Masters" (Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky), "Struggle with the Devil" (Holdrin, Kleist, Nietzsche) and "The Life of Three Writers" (Casanova Published 12 character story collection "When the Stars Shine";
1929, a biography of historical figures, Joseph Fuxi; 193 1 year, published by Psychotherapy; 1932, historical biography "Mary Antonette";
1933 Hitler came to power, and Zweig moved to Britain the following year. In the same year, he was expelled from his former residence by the Nazis and began to live in exile. The wife introduced an exiled Jewish girl, Charlotte Altman, as a secretary; He has created works such as Invisible Collection, Episode by Lake Geneva, Mendel, a Second-hand Bookseller, and Clever Knowledge of Art Nouveau.
The Vienna incident took place on 1934. Austrian fascists demanded that anschluss be expelled by the Nazis. They went into exile in England and Brazil.
1935, Maria Stuart, biography of historical figures, victory and sadness of Erasmus from Rotterdam;
1936 published a biography "Castillo against Calvin" with the medieval Reformation as the background; The novel Anxiety of the Mind was put on the screen on 1940.
1937, separated from his wife and divorced amicably the following year; 1939, World War II broke out and Austria was occupied; Losing nationality; Marry Charlotte Altman. 1938, after Austria was merged into Germany, it became a British citizen and soon left Britain for the United States.
1940, he went to Brazil via new york. At that time, fascist forces were rampant, and the writer witnessed the destruction of his "spiritual hometown of Europe" and felt desperate.
1942, completing the autobiography "Yesterday's World"; On February 22nd, he and his second wife, Green altman (33 years old), both committed suicide by taking poison in their apartment in Indianapolis, petro, a suburban town of Rio de Janeiro.
Main work
Creative characteristics
novel
Theme of the work
Zweig's works, especially his novels, mainly take "emotion, lust and women" as the theme, and describe the inner world of the characters, all kinds of complex and rich emotional activities and psychological states, which just fit the aesthetic expectation vision of China readers. These novel texts either attach importance to the psychological analysis of the budding of boys and girls, or record the painful confessions of adult men and women who committed the crime of lust driven by lust, or describe the bitter memories of men and women in their twilight years. In Zweig's works, readers "discovered a strange and fascinating emotional world" and produced a "* * * sound" with it.
Europe between the two world wars is not a peaceful world, but the seemingly safe appearance hides turmoil, and the shadow of war makes blood and chaos everywhere. Europeans living in this era inevitably bear the negative consequences brought by the calendar of environmental variation: material poverty, environmental repression and mental burden.
Although the characters in Zweig's novels belong to the bourgeoisie, and their survival is not threatened, Zweig knows that the peace of material life cannot escape spiritual troubles. In order to experience, Zweig set up various special environments for his characters: strange women "live a narrow life", "try to tell others their worries", no one "points out, reminds them, has no experience", and "girls who have lost their feelings are indifferent and lazy. The Malay madman was expelled from Rotterdam for misappropriating hospital funds. Instead of being put into a city with crowds, clubs, golf and books and newspapers, he went to a place two days away from the nearest city. There are only a few boring officials and a few hybrids in the social circle, and the rest are endless forests, plantations, swamps and wetlands. They are abandoned children who are addicted to their inner world. These characters are usually a little empty, lonely and autistic. They lack opportunities for normal social interaction and the enrichment of normal and mediocre days. Over time, they also lost their social skills and desires, and their feelings also lost a normal channel of release. But the more thoughts I accumulate, the more depressed I am. As long as there is the right opportunity, it has incredible power when it erupts.
The chaotic and fragmented living environment in capitalist society and the indifferent relationship between people have caused a lot of emotional depravity. Their inner loneliness and helplessness often prompt them to show some unreasonable behaviors, which is a completely unconscious struggle and a futile attempt by drowning people to seize a lifeline. Because of this, the characters in Zweig's works have unusual courage and arrogance.
Artistic feature
The strange behavior of the characters in Zweig's novels is often sudden and often violates the general ethical principles. Therefore, after the passion, the parties are either ashamed to speak, or disdain to compromise with the secular, expose their true bloom to the world, and be ridiculed or even ridiculed by the world. However, people's ideological load should not be too heavy. Once the limit is reached, the desire to talk will sweep everything. People who have been in a state of aphasia for too long need to stop the right object and stop the right time, and the language will flood. Zweig not only knows and grasps this point, but also hardly allows any interruption or useless description to guide and interrupt the speaker, thus weakening the power of expression. A long, coherent and anxious confession is not so much a talk to people as a monologue, a mumbling in an anxious state hovering on the edge of society, and a review of the past with the help of strangers as a medium.
It is with this deep understanding and sympathy for people who lived in that era and that troubled times that Zweig chose this form of expression; In other words, only in this way can the feelings of the characters in Zweig's works be fully and incisively expressed, and the readers can understand the distortion and alienation of the characters in that era through the narratives of these characters, which to some extent pushed that era to the judgment seat.
Zweig's novels have a distinctive feature, that is, his novels have a taste of drama. Whether it is the hand of a young gambler in Twenty-four Hours, the cold dagger in Moonlight Hutong, or the white rose that appears faintly and repeatedly in Strange Woman, there is dramatic exaggeration and suspense, and the monologues of the characters in the works are all forms of drama.
biography
Zweig's biographical literature works mainly have two parts. One is the biographies of writers with the general title of "World Architects", which are circulated by Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Holderlin, Creste, Nietzsche, Casanova, Stendhal and Leo Tolstoy. Most of these people are famous literary masters from 19 century to the 20th century. Looking at this list today is almost a history of European literary thought in the19th century.
The second is a series of biographies of historical figures, including Iras, a humanist 400 years ago, Castries, a brave Swiss scholar who resisted Calvin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots in16th century, and anna marie Tonet, Queen of French King Louis XVI in18th century. No matter the description of the biographer's life, the evaluation of his position, merits and demerits, the description of his psychology and behavior, or the description of his fate and gains and losses, all of them are based on humanitarianism, affirming the concept of freedom and humanistic feelings, attacking ideological imprisonment and autocracy, and expressing Zweig's humanitarian spirit of loving human beings and life.
Zweig's biographical literature creation is closely related to his life time and education. Vienna gave birth to Zweig, his ideals and beliefs, his pursuit of life, his unparalleled artistic appreciation and his artistic talent. Deeply influenced by western humanitarianism, he critically accepted Nietzsche's superman philosophy, the thoughts and theories of Turner, romain rolland, Sterlacci and Freud.
Zweig's biographical literature creation is rooted in the fertile soil of western culture and real life, deeply nourished by humanitarianism, and influenced by Nietzsche, Turner, romain rolland, Sterlacci and Freud, which profoundly spreads the inner world of the master and shows the development and changes of the master's psychology in detail.
Personality influence
After Zweig's death, the Brazilian President ordered a state funeral for the master. After 1945, Zweig's works first aroused strong repercussions in the United States and Japan, and then in the Soviet Union, but it seems to be forgotten in German-speaking countries. Until 198 1, the centenary of Zweig's birth, S. Fischer Publishing House of the Federal Republic of Germany reprinted Zweig's works, including his novella "Wonderful Night and Emotional Chaos", the biographies of his three masters "Fighting the Devil" and his biographies of historical figures Joseph Fouché and Marie Antoinette. Zweig is a modern German writer who has translated the most languages.
Personality assessment
Zweig's reputation in the world is well deserved. Under the pressure of the times, his willpower collapsed despite his natural talent, which is really sad. What I admire most is his unique talent, which can vividly reproduce some periods and figures in history with his psychological and artistic skills. (Comment by German writer thomas mann)
Zweig is a noble spokesman of Austrian civil society and the best description of their abilities and weaknesses, charm and despair. (French writer romain rolland comments)
The books written by Zweig are very useful, and Zweig deserves to be a real artist. (Russian writer Gorky comments)
Zweig is proficient in language. He is good at expressing an object and making its most exquisite details vivid and concrete. (Comments by Austrian psychologist Freud)