Ernst Meister
Ernst Meister (3 September 1911 – 15 June 1979) was a German poet and writer.
Meister's poetry falls within a dark abstract landscape of existentialism, with tortured themes influenced by his experiences during World War II. In his 1976 collection of poems, Im Zeitspalt ("In Time's Rift"), Meister frankly addresses mortality and the nothingness of our existence as both mind and body decay into death. His poetry is noted for its spare brevity and difficult syntax and has been compared to the work of Romanian poet Paul Celan (1920–1970), Meister's contemporary in German letters. However, despite writing 16 collections of verse, Meister was not involved with the dominant literary and cultural elite and his works were relatively unknown during his lifetime.
Biography
Ernst Meister was raised in Hagen, Germany.
He studied theology, literature, art history, and philosophy (the latter under Karl Löwith and Hans-Georg Gadamer) at various German universities before enlisting as a soldier in the Second World War. A number of war-related experiences are worked into his poems, stories, radio plays, and stage plays. His first major publication, Austellung, appeared in 1932, following which he published nothing for two decades. This period of silence ultimately gave way to the prolific last third of his life. Between 1953 and 1979, Meister produced more than 16 volumes of verse along with a number of other literary and visual works.
He received a number of awards in his lifetime, including the Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Prize in 1957, the Great Art Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1963, the Petrarch Prize in 1976, and the Rainer Maria Rilke Prize for Poetry (jointly with Sarah Kirsch) in 1978. Meister was posthumously given the most prestigious award in German literature, the Georg Büchner Prize, having been informed of the honor days before his death.
He has champions within Germany literature, having been a mentor to the poet and novelist Nicolas Born and leaving many to grapple with his place in the German canon.
Works
Poetry
- 1932: Ausstellung (trans. Exhibition)
- 1953: Unterm schwarzen Schafspelz (trans. Under Black Sheep's Clothing)
- 1954: Dem Spiegelkabinett gegenüber
- 1972: Sage vom Ganzen den Satz
- 1976: Im Zeitspalt (trans. In Time's Rift)
- 1979: Wandloser Raum
- In Time's Rift [Im Zeitspalt] , Translated by Graham Foust and Samuel Frederick, Wave Books, 2012
- Wallless Space , Translated by Graham Foust and Samuel Frederick, Wave Books, 2014
References
Notes
Further reading
- Dove, Richard (1980), Poems by Ernst Meister, Translated and Introduced, in Bold, Christine (ed.), Cencrastus No. 2, Spring 1980, pp. 26 - 29.
- Foust, Graham and Frederick, Samuel. "On Ernst Meister". Poetry Society of America.
External links
- Author page at Wave Books
- v
- t
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- 1923 Adam Karrillon and Arnold Mendelssohn
- 1924 Alfred Bock and Paul Thesing
- 1925 Wilhelm Michel and Rudolf Koch
- 1926 Christian Heinrich Kleukens and Wilhelm Petersen
- 1927 Kasimir Edschmid and Johannes Bischoff
- 1928 Richard Hoelscher and Well Habicht
- 1929 Carl Zuckmayer and Adam Antes
- 1930 Nikolaus Schwarzkopf and Johannes Lippmann
- 1931 Alexander Posch and Hans Simon
- 1932 Albert H. Rausch and Adolf Bode
- 1933–1944 not given
- 1945 Hans Schiebelhuth
- 1946 Fritz Usinger
- 1947 Anna Seghers
- 1948 Hermann Heiss
- 1949 Carl Gunschmann
- 1950 Elisabeth Langgässer
- 1951 Gottfried Benn
- 1952 not given
- 1953 Ernst Kreuder
- 1954 Martin Kessel
- 1955 Marie Luise Kaschnitz
- 1956 Karl Krolow
- 1957 Erich Kästner
- 1958 Max Frisch
- 1959 Günter Eich
- 1960 Paul Celan
- 1961 Hans Erich Nossack
- 1962 Wolfgang Koeppen
- 1963 Hans Magnus Enzensberger
- 1964 Ingeborg Bachmann
- 1965 Günter Grass
- 1966 Wolfgang Hildesheimer
- 1967 Heinrich Böll
- 1968 Golo Mann
- 1969 Helmut Heißenbüttel
- 1970 Thomas Bernhard
- 1971 Uwe Johnson
- 1972 Elias Canetti
- 1973 Peter Handke
- 1974 Hermann Kesten
- 1975 Manès Sperber
- 1976 Heinz Piontek
- 1977 Reiner Kunze
- 1978 Hermann Lenz
- 1979 Ernst Meister
- 1980 Christa Wolf
- 1981 Martin Walser
- 1982 Peter Weiss
- 1983 Wolfdietrich Schnurre
- 1984 Ernst Jandl
- 1985 Heiner Müller
- 1986 Friedrich Dürrenmatt
- 1987 Erich Fried
- 1988 Albert Drach
- 1989 Botho Strauß
- 1990 Tankred Dorst
- 1991 Wolf Biermann
- 1992 George Tabori
- 1993 Peter Rühmkorf
- 1994 Adolf Muschg
- 1995 Durs Grünbein
- 1996 Sarah Kirsch
- 1997 H. C. Artmann
- 1998 Elfriede Jelinek
- 1999 Arnold Stadler
- 2000 Volker Braun
- 2001 Friederike Mayröcker
- 2002 Wolfgang Hilbig
- 2003 Alexander Kluge
- 2004 Wilhelm Genazino
- 2005 Brigitte Kronauer
- 2006 Oskar Pastior
- 2007 Martin Mosebach
- 2008 Josef Winkler
- 2009 Walter Kappacher
- 2010 Reinhard Jirgl
- 2011 Friedrich Christian Delius
- 2012 Felicitas Hoppe
- 2013 Sibylle Lewitscharoff
- 2014 Jürgen Becker
- 2015 Rainald Goetz
- 2016 Marcel Beyer
- 2017 Jan Wagner
- 2018 Terézia Mora
- 2019 Lukas Bärfuss
- 2020 Elke Erb
- 2021 Clemens J. Setz
- 2022 Emine Sevgi Özdamar
- 2023: Lutz Seiler