Background
Jean Paul was born at Wunsiedel, in Bavaria, Germany on March 21, 1763. His father was a schoolmaster and organist at Wunsiedel, but in 1765 he became a pastor at Joditz near Hof, and in 1776 at Schwarzenbach, where he died in 1779.
Jean Paul was born at Wunsiedel, in Bavaria, Germany on March 21, 1763. His father was a schoolmaster and organist at Wunsiedel, but in 1765 he became a pastor at Joditz near Hof, and in 1776 at Schwarzenbach, where he died in 1779.
After attending the gymnasium at Hof, Richter went in 1781 to the university of Leipzig. His original intention was to enter his father's profession, but theology did not interest him, and he soon devoted himself wholly to the study of literature.
Unable to maintain himself at Leipzig he returned in 1784 to Hof, where he lived with his mother. From 1787 to 1789 he served as a tutor at Topen, a village near Hof; and afterwards he taught the children of several families at Schwarzenbach. Richter began his career as a man of letters with Gronlandische Prozesse and Auswahl aus des Teufels Papier en, the former of which was issued in 1783-84, the latter in 1789. These works were not received with much favour, and in later life Richter himself had little sympathy with their satirical tone. His next book, Die unsichtbare Loge, a romance, published in 1793, had all the qualities which were soon to make him famous, and its power was immediately recognized by some of the best critics of the day. Encouraged by the reception of Die unsichtbare Loge, he sent forth in rapid succession Hesperus (1795), Biographische Belustigungen unter der Gehirnschale einer Riesin (1796), Leben des Quintus Fixlein (1796), Blumen- Frucht- und Dornenstücke, oder Ehestand, Tod und Hochzeit des Armenadvokaten Siebenkäs (1796 - 97), Der Jubelsenior (1797), and Das Kampaner Tal (1797). This series of writings won for Richter an assured place in German literature, and during the rest of his life every work he produced was welcomed by a wide circle of admirers. After his mother's death he went in 1797 to Leipzig, and in the following year to Weimar, where he had much pleasant intercourse with Herder, by whom he was warmly appreciated. He did not become intimate with Goethe and Schiller, to both of whom his literary methods were repugnant; but in Weimar, as elsewhere, his remarkable conversational powers and his genial manners made him a favourite in general society. Richter spent a quiet, simple and happy life, constantly occupied with his work as a writer. In 1808 he was fortunately delivered from anxifety as to outward necessities by the prince-primate, К. T. von Dalberg, who gave him a pension of a thousand florins. Before settling at Bayreuth, Richter had published his most ambitious novel, Titan (1800 - 3); and this was followed by Flegeljahre (1804 - 5), two works which he himself regarded as his masterpieces. His later imaginative works were Dr Kdtzehbergers Badereise (1809), Des Feldpredigers Schmelzle Reise nach Flatz (1809), Leben Fibels (1812), and Der Komet, oder Nikolaus Marggraf - (1820 - 22). In Vorschule der Aesthetik (1804) he expounded his ideas on art; he discussed the principles of education in Levana, oder Erziehungslehre (1807); and the opinions suggested by current events he set forth in Friedens- predigt (1808), Dammerungen fiir Deutschland (1809), Mars und Phobus Thronwechsel im Jahre 1814 (1814), and Politische Fastenprediglen (1817). In his last years he began Wahrheit aus Jean Pauls Leben, to which additions from his papers and other sources were made after his death by C. Otto and E. Forster. In the form of his writings he never did full justice to his great powers. In working out his conceptions he found it impossible to restrain the expression of any powerful feeling by which he might happen to be moved. He was equally unable to resist the temptation to bring in strange facts or notions which occurred to him. Hence every one of his works is irregular in structure, and his style lacks directness, precision and grace. His expressions of religious feelings are also marked by a truly poetic spirit, for to Richter visible things were but the symbols of the invisible, and in the unseen realities alone he found elements which seemed to him to give significance and dignity to human life. That it is sometimes extravagant and grotesque cannot be disputed, but it is never harsh nor vulgar, and generally it springs naturally from the perception of the incongruity between ordinary facts arid ideal laws.
Jean Paul’s writing bridged the shift in literature from the formal ideals of Weimar Classicism to the intuitive transcendentalism of early Romanticism.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(In the house of the Court-Chaplain Eymann, in the bathing...)
( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
His imagination was one of extraordinary fertility, and he had a surprising power of suggesting great thoughts by means of the simplest incidents and relations.
His humour, the most distinctive of his qualities, cannot be dissociated from the other characteristics of his writings.
Richter's personality was deep and many-sided; with all his wilfulness and eccentricity he was a man of a pure and sensitive Spirit, with a passionate scorn for pretence and an ardent enthusiasm for truth and goodness.
Quotes from others about the person
Schiller said of Richter that he would have been worthy of admitation " if he had made as good use of his riches as other men made of their poverty. "
In 1801 he married Caroline Meyer, whom he met in Berlin in 1800. They lived first at Meiningen, then at Coburg; and filially, in 1804, they settled at Bayreuth. In 1821 Richter lost his only son, a youth of the highest promise; and he never quite recovered from this shock.
