Carl Sternheim

Carl Sternheim (April 1, 1878 – November 3, 1942) was a German playwright and short story writer. One of the major exponents of German Expressionism, he especially satirized the moral sensibilities of the emerging German middle class during the Wilhelmine period.

Life

Born in Leipzig to a Jewish banker and his Protestant wife from a working-class family, Sternheim grew up in Hannover and Berlin. Between 1897 and 1902, he studied philosophy, psychology, and jurisprudence intermittently at the Universities of Munich, Göttingen, and Leipzig, but never graduated. In 1900, he began working as a freelance writer in Weimar, where he met and married his first wife Eugenie Hauth the same year. Their union ended in 1906 and he married the writer Thea Löwenstein (née Bauer) in 1907, with whom he had two children.

The wealth brought by Thea from her rich manufacturing family enabled the couple to build the Schloss Bellemaison in Munich. Here, Sternheim worked in the company of fellow artists such as Mechtilde Lichnowsky, Max Reinhardt, and Frank Wedekind, and assembled his own art collection. In 1908, he collaborated with Franz Blei to launch the Expressionist literary journal "Hyperion", which published the first eight prose works by Franz Kafka. He also contributed occasionally to the Expressionist journal "Die Aktion". In 1912, he relocated with his family to Belgium and in 1918, they fled the fighting of World War I and temporarily moved to St. Moritz and Uttwil in Switzerland. Sternheim and Thea divorced in 1927. His next marriage, to actress and singer Pamela Wedekind, took place in 1930 and lasted until 1934, after which he lived with Henriette Carbonara. Sternheim died in Brussels during World War II and was buried in the Ixelles Cemetery.

Sternheim's circle of prominent friends included Gottfried Benn, Carl Einstein, Franz Pfemfert, Walther Rathenau, Ernst Stadler, Hugo von Tschudi, Fritz von Unruh, and Otto Vrieslander. In 1915, he presented the prize money for the Fontane Prize to the then largely unknown Kafka. The Nazi authorities banned Sternheim's work not only because of his Jewish descent but also because of his savage comedic assaults on the perceived moral corruption of the German bourgeoisie.

Major works

*"Aus dem bürgerlichen Heldenleben" ("From the Heroic Life of the Bourgeois"), play cycle (1911–22):
**"Die Hose" ("The Trousers", also "The Underpants")
**"Der Snob" ("The Snob")
**"1913"
**"Das Fossil" ("The Fossil")
**"Die Kassette" ("The Cartridge")
**"Bürger Schippel" ("Citizens Schippel")
*"Chronik von des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts Beginn" ("Chronicle of the Beginning of the Twentieth Century"), short stories, 1918
*"Kampf der Metapher" ("Struggle of Metaphor"), essay (1917)
*"Die Marquise von Arcis" ("The Mask of Virtue"), drama (1918)
*"Europa", novel, 2 vol. (1919/1920)
*"Manon Lescaut", drama (1921)
*"Oscar Wilde: His Drama", drama (1925)
*"Vorkriegseuropa im Gleichnis meines Lebens" ("Prewar Europe in the Parable of My Life"), memoir (1936)

References

* [http://www.capitalrep.org/pdfs/UnderpantsSG.pdf Steve Martin's "The Underpants"] , production study guide for an adaptation of Sternheim's play at the Capital Repertory Theatre (November 3 – December 2, 2006), "About the Original Playwright", p. 8.

External links

* [http://www.carl-sternheim-gesellschaft.de/ Carl Sternheim Society, Frankfurt (in German)]
* [http://www.czucka.de/Literaturwissenschaft/Autoren_20_Jhd/Sternheim/CSt_im_Internet/cst_im_internet.html Guide to online resources on Carl Sternheim (in German)]