biography
pronunciation:
[shtifter]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1805–68)
|
| biography:
| Writer, born in Oberplan, Böhmerwald, S Austria. The son of a weaver, he was brought up by his grandparents and studied law and natural sciences, as well as painting, before becoming a tutor and later inspector of schools. A masterly prose writer of the Biedermeier period, he moved from Romanticism and the influence of Jean Paul towards a harmonious classical ideal in which he prized especially the ‘sanftes Gesetz’ of nature - as opposed to hectic modernity - and the virtues of moderation, orderliness, and simplicity. He is famed above all for his depictions of nature. From 1840 he published in periodicals stories which he later collected as Studien (1844–50) and Bunte Steine (1853). These included such works as Die Mappe meines Urgroßvaters (1841), Der Hochwald (1842), Abdias (1843), Brigitta (1844), Bergkristall (1845), Der Hagestolz (1845), Der Waldsteig (1845), and Granit (1853). He also wrote the educational Bildungsroman Der Nachsommer (1857) and a historical novel Witiko (1865–7). Stricken by an incurable disease in 1863, he later committed suicide. |
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