Gustav Falke

Gustav Falke
240px Gustav Falke, 1905
Born	11 January 1853 Lübeck, Germany
Died	Hamburg, Germany
Occupation	writer
Literary movement	impressionistic lyric poetry

Gustav Falke (11 January 1853 – 8 February 1916) was a German writer.

Biography

Falke was born in Lübeck to merchant Johann Friedrich Christian Falke and his wife Elisabeth Franziska Hoyer. The historians Johannes and Jacob von Falke were his uncles, and the translator Otto Falke was his cousin.

Falke attended the Katharineum in Lübeck and completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller in Hamburg from 1868. Since his stepfather denied him his wish to study literature or music, Falke left Hamburg in 1870. From 1870 to 1877, he worked as a bookseller in Essen, then in Stuttgart at the publishing bookstore August Auerbach, and finally in Hildburghausen. In 1878, he returned to Hamburg, where he received private musical training from Emil Krause. He then earned his living as a piano teacher.

In 1890, he married his former piano student Anna Heissel. With her he had two daughters, Gertrud (1891-1984, married to the lawyer Hermann Heller since 1922) and Ursula (1896-1981, married to the sculptor Richard Luksch since 1923), and a son, Walter (1901-1967).

In the 1890s he began to publish his own literary works and thus very quickly came into contact with the circle of the Hamburg Literary Society around Otto Ernst, Jakob Löwenberg, and Emil von Schoenaich-Carolath.

Having already become aware of Falke's poetry in Munich, Detlev von Liliencron contacted him. The friendship existed at first only in writing, but was intensified after Liliencron moved to Ottensen.

On his fiftieth birthday in 1903, the city of Hamburg awarded Falke a lifelong honorary salary "for his services to German literature," which enabled him to purchase a villa in Groß Borstel and to live independently as a writer.

There is a Gustav Falke Street in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel, Lübeck-St. Jürgen and Kiel-Pries. A Gustav Falke stele by the sculptor Ludwig Kunstmann was erected at Herbst's Park in Groß Borstel in 1952.

Falke died in Hamburg.

Writings

Gustav Falke began his literary career as an impressionist lyricist. His contemporary role models were above all Richard Dehmel, Paul Heyse and Detlev von Liliencron, but as a conservative author he also cultivated a folk and folksong tone and thus saw himself in the tradition of poets such as Mörike, Eichendorff, Storm and Geibel.

Falke's novels, which incorporated a great deal of local Hamburg color, can be classified as moderate naturalism. He also wrote epics and novellas. A remarkable part of his oeuvre is made up of his children's books in poem and prose form, whose cheerful and lively tone made them great successes around the turn of the century. With the outbreak of World War I, Falke proved to be an uncompromising nationalist who placed his literary work entirely in the service of German nationalist goals. For his work in the service of his country, he was awarded the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle in 1915.

Several of his books were illustrated by Carl Otto Czeschka (1878-1960). Musical compositions to Falke's poetry were created by Leo Blech, Engelbert Humperdinck, Alma Mahler-Werfel, Max Reger, Paul Scheinpflug, Max von Schillings, Arnold Schönberg, Richard Strauss and Anton Webern, among others. By the time of the poet's death, the Music Department of the Royal Library in Berlin counted in its possession over 480 different compositions of Falke's texts (for example, "Der Mond scheint auf mein Lager" had been set to music 26 times by then).

Works

• Aus dem Durchschnitt, Berlin 1892
• Mynheer der Tod und andere Gedichte, Dresden u.a. 1892
• Tanz und Andacht, München 1893
• Harmlose Humoresken, München 1894
• Der Kuß, München 1894
• Zwischen zwei Nächten, Stuttgart 1894
• Landen und Stranden, Berlin
  • 1. Hamburger Kinder, 1895
  • 2. Neben der Arbeit, 1895
  • 3. Hab ich nur deine Liebe, 1901
• Zwei, 1896
• Neue Fahrt, Berlin 1897
• Der Mann im Nebel, Hamburg 1899
• Mit dem Leben, Hamburg 1899
• Gustav Falke als Lyriker, Hamburg 1900
• Vogelbuch, Hamburg 1901 (together with Otto Speckter)
• Katzenbuch, Hamburg 1900 (together with Otto Speckter)
• Hohe Sommertage, Hamburg 1902
• Putzi, Hamburg 1902
• Aus Muckimacks Reich, Hamburg 1903
• Zwischengerichte, Leipzig 1903
• Der gestiefelte Kater, Hamburg 1904
• Ausgewählte Gedichte, Hamburg 1905
• Bübchens Weihnachtstraum. Melodramatisches Krippenspiel. Musik (1906): Engelbert Humperdinck. UA 1906
• Eichendorff, Berlin u.a. 1906
• En Handvull Appeln, Hamburg 1906
• Timm Kröger, Hamburg 1906
• Frohe Fracht, Hamburg 1907
• Heitere Geschichten, Berlin u.a. 1907
• Drei gute Kameraden, Mainz 1908
• Hamburg, Stuttgart u.a. 1908
• Die Kinder aus Ohlsens Gang, Hamburg 1908
• Dörten und andere Erzählungen, Leipzig 1909
• Ein lustig Jahr der Tiere, München 1909 (together with Th. Huggenberger)
• Tierbilder, Mainz (together with Eugen Osswald)
  • 1 (1909)
  • 2 (1909)
• Winter und Frühling, Leipzig 1909
• Die Auswahl, Hamburg 1910
• Geelgösch, Leipzig u.a.] 1910
• Klaus Bärlappe, Mainz 1910
• Der Spanier, Berlin 1910
• Drei Helden, Mainz 1911 (together with Arpad Schmidhammer)
• Das Schützenfest. Im Fischerdorf, Reutlingen 1911
• Unruhig steht die Sehnsucht auf, Hamburg u.a.] 1911
• Gesammelte Dichtungen, Hamburg u.a.
  • 1. Herddämmerglück, 1912
  • 2. Tanz und Andacht, 1912
  • 3. Der Frühlingsreiter, 1912
  • 4. Der Schnitter, 1912
  • 5. Erzählende Dichtungen, 1912
• Herr Henning oder Die Tönniesfresser von Hildesheim, Leipzig 1912
• Die neidischen Schwestern, Berlin 1912
• Der Schnitter, Hamburg 1912
• Die Stadt mit den goldenen Türmen, Berlin 1912
• Anna, Hamburg 1913
• Herr Purtaller und seine Tochter, Mainz 1913
• Kunterbunt, Mainz 1914 (together with Eugen Osswald)
• Vaterland heilig Land, Leipzig 1915
• Viel Feind, viel Ehr, Leipzig 1915
• Das Leben lebt, Berlin 1916

Translations

• Holger Drachmann: Verschrieben, Leipzig 1904 (translated together with Julia Koppel)
• John Brymer mit Zeichnungen von Stewart Orr: Zwei lustige Seeleute, Köln am Rhein 1905 Original: Two Merry Mariners

Editor

• Steht auf ihr lieben Kinderlein, Köln 1906 (published together with Jakob Loewenberg)
• Friedrich Hebbel: Meine Kindheit, Hamburg 1903
• Das Büchlein Immergrün, Cöln 1903
• Kriegsdichtungen, Hamburg
  • 1. Hoch, Kaiser und Reich!, 1914
  • 2. Unsere Helden, 1915
  • 3. Wir und Österreich, 1915
  • 4. Zu Wasser und zu Lande, 1915
  • 5. Feinde ringsum, 1915
  • 6. Von Feld zu Feld, 1915
  • 7. Fern vom Krieg, 1916
  • 8. Zum blutig frohen Reigen, 1917

References

• Oscar Ludwig Brandt: Gustav Falke. Enoch Verlag, Hamburg 1917.
• Friedrich Castelle: Gustav Falke. Ein deutscher Lyriker. Hesse und Becker, Leipzig 1909.
• Joachim Müller (ed.): Die Akten Gustav Falke und Max Dauthendey, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1970 (Aus dem Archiv der Deutschen Schillerstiftung; 15/16)
• Kurt Oppert: Gustav Falke. Darstellung seiner Persönlichkeit und Formanalyse seiner Gedichte nach allgemeinen Gesichtspunkten und im Vergleich zu andersartiger Lyrik. Dissertation, Universität, Bonn 1925.
• Jens Resühr: Verskunstprobleme in der Lyrik Gustav Falkes. Hamburg 1967.
• Ernst Ludwig Schellenberg: Gustav Falke. Verlag für Literatur, Kunst und Musik, Leipzig 1908 (Beiträge zur Literaturgeschichte; H. 55)
• Heinrich Spiero: Gustav Falke. Ein Lebensbild. Westermann, Braunschweig 1928.
• Gerhard Steiner: Stille Dächer, zarte Liebe. Die Jugendzeit des Dichters Gustav Falke in Hildburghausen. Verlag Frankenschwelle Salier, Hildburghausen 1994, ISBN 3-86180-024-1.

External links

• Works by Gustav Falke at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Gustav Falke at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Works by Gustav Falke at Open Library[[Category:Translators from Danish]