STERNHEIM, CARL
Publié le 22/02/2012
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STERNHEIM, CARL (1878–1942), dramatist; applauded in the Republic's
early years for his plays satirizing bourgeois society. Born in Leipzig to a Jewish
banker and theater* critic, he grew up in Berlin* and resolved in his teens to
become a writer. After broad studies during 1897–1901, he spent much of the
next two decades developing a literary style. In 1907, after marrying the wealthy
Thea Bauer (a stage designer), he settled in Munich and, with critic Franz Blei,
founded the journal Hyperion. His first success, Die Hose (The trousers), appeared
in 1911.
Sternheim's early work, inspired by Nietzsche and Ibsen, leaned on a neoromantic
tendency to explore the relationship between life and art. But, unsuccessful
with romanticism, he shifted to comic satire. Between 1910 and 1922
he wrote a series of plays collected in 1922 as Aus dem bu¨rgerlichen Heldenleben
(From the heroic life of the bourgeoisie). He was only indirectly political
(he championed individualism), and his interest in the bourgeoisie was concerned
less with class than with mental attitude—his middle class was sexually
dissolute and unexcelled in its drive for status. His Maske trilogy, of which Die
Hose was the first part (it was followed by Der Snob and 1913), is a saga through
which each of three generations forfeits its identity for the sake of greed. His
characters evoke little interest apart from the vices they illustrate. Because his
work was rejected by the Kaiser's censor, he achieved popularity only after
World War I; indeed, in the early Republic he vied with Georg Kaiser* as
Germany's most favored playwright.
In the war, during which he translated and adapted many of Molie`re's plays,
Sternheim began comparing himself to the French playwright. He also wrote
essays, short stories, and the novel Europa (1919–1920), although they were
less well known. For some time his marriage to Bauer enabled an extravagant
lifestyle, but a nervous disorder produced growing irritability and myriad
changes in address. For several years, until a bitter separation from Bauer in
1924, he wrote for the Expressionist* journal Aktion.* His post-1925 work,
increasingly personal, demonstrates a marked decline in his literary powers.
After Hitler* seized power, he settled in Brussels.
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