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German author (1863?1915)
Paul Karl Wilhelm Scheerbart
(8 January 1863,
Danzig
– 15 October 1915, Berlin) was a German author of
speculative fiction
literature
and
drawings
. He was also published under the
pseudonym
Kuno Kufer
and is best known for the book
Glasarchitektur
(1914).
Scheerbart was associated with
expressionist architecture
and one of its leading proponents,
Bruno Taut
. He composed aphoristic poems about glass for the Taut's
Glass Pavilion
at the
Werkbund Exhibition (1914)
.
Life
[
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]
Paul Scheerbart began studies of
philosophy
and
history of art
in 1885. In 1887 he worked as a poet in Berlin and tried to invent
Perpetual motion
machines. In 1892 he was one of the joint founders of the
Verlag deutscher Phantasten
(Publishers of German Fantasists).
At this time he was in financial difficulties. After writing in different publications he produced his first
novel
Die große Revolution
(
The Great Revolution
), which was published by the
Insel-Verlag
. The young
Ernst Rowohlt
published Scheerbart's bizarre poem collection
Katerpoesie
and became his friend.
Scheerbart's fantasy essays about glass architecture influenced architects at that time, including the young
Bruno Taut
. Among his Berlin friends and drinking circle was
Erich Muhsam
, who dedicated a chapter to Scheerbart in his 'Unpolitical Memories' and
Richard Dehmel
. Scheerbart was also an important influence on
Walter Benjamin
who quoted his ideas on glass in his
Arcades Project
.
Work
[
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]
"Scheerbart published a long succession of fantasy novels, articles, and poems between 1889 and his death in 1915, in which he insisted that the universe is far too rich and complex to be comprehended by reason alone. Only naive wonder — the basis of the sublime — could promote the development of higher forms of understanding."
[1]
Works
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Very few of Scheerbart's works have been translated into English. Though the following list also gives English translations of the titles, there is usually no English-language edition of the work available.
- 1889
Das Paradies. Die Heimat der Kunst
(Paradise. Home of the Arts)
- 1893
Ja... was... mochten wir nicht Alles!
, (Yes.....What......We wouldn't all like to have!), A Fable
- 1897
Ich liebe Dich!
, (I love you!), A Novel with 66
Intermezzos
- 1897
Tarub, Bagdads beruhmte Kochin
, (Tarub, Baghdad's famous female cook), Arab culture novel
- 1897
Der Tod der Barmekiden
, (The death of the Barmakids), Arab Harem novel
- 1898
Na prost!
, (Well, Cheers!), Fantasy King novel
- 1900
Die wilde Jagd
, (The wild hunt), A development novel in eight stories
- 1901
Rakkox der Billionar
, (Rakkox the trillionaire), An ostentatious novel
- 1901
Die Seeschlange
(The Sea Serpent), A
sea novel
- 1902
Die große Revolution
, (The Great Revolution), A moon novel
- 1902
Immer mutig!
, (Always courageously!), A Fantasy novel
- 1902
Liwuna und Kaidoh
, A Soul novel
- 1902
Weltglanz
, (World Shine), a sun fairy tale
- 1903
Kometentanz
, (Comet dance), Astral Pantomime in two acts
- 1903
Der Aufgang zur Sonne
, (The stairway to the sun), house fairy tales
- 1904
Der Kaiser von Utopia
, (The emperor of Utopia), a folktale
- 1904
Machtspaße
, (Jests about power), Arab novellas
- 1904
Revolutionare Theater-Bibliothek
, (Revolutionary theatre library), collection of plays
- 1906
Munchhausen und Clarissa
, Berlin novel
- 1907
Jenseits-Galeri
- 1909
Die Entwicklung des Luftmilitarismus und die Auflosung der europaischen Land-Heere, Festungen und Seeflotten
, (translated into English as The Development of Aerial Militarism and the Demobilization of European Ground Forces, Fortresses, and Naval Fleets, Brooklyn, New York: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007, Series: Lost Literature #4, translated by M. Kasper)
- 1909
Kater-Poesie
, (
translatable as
Tomcat poetry
or
Hangover poetry), poems
- 1910
Das Perpetuum mobile, Die Geschichte einer Erfindung
(translated into English as
The perpetual motion machine: The story of an invention
, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Wakefield Press, 2011)
- 1912
Das große Licht
, (The Great Light) A
Munchausen
–
Breviary
- 1912
Flora Mohr
, A glass flower novella
- 1913
Lesabendio
, an Asteroid novel ; English translation, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Wakefield Press, 2012
- 1914
Das graue Tuch und zehn Prozent Weiß
, (The grey cloth and ten percent of white), a ladies novel. Translated into English as:
The Gray Cloth: Paul Scheerbart's Novel on Glass Architecture
.
Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : MIT Press, 2001.
ISBN
0-262-19460-0
- 1914
Glasarchitektur
(Glass architecture)
- 1921
Von Zimmer zu Zimmer
, (From room to room), letters to his wife
See also
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Notes
[
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]
- ^
Iain Boyd White, "The Expressionist Sublime", in Benson et al., p. 126.
Bibliography
[
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]
- Alvizu, Josh. “Utopie der grunen Sonne: Zu Benjamin, Scheerbart und Glasarchitektur.” Translated by Roland Koch and Frank Degler.
Bloch-Almanach
33 (2015): 201?18.
- Anger, Jenny.
Four Metaphors of Modernism: From Der Sturm to the Societe Anonyme
. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2018.
- Armond, Kate. “Cosmic Men: Wyndham Lewis, Ernst Haeckel, and Paul Scheerbart.”
Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies
4 (2013): 41?62.
- Arnold-de Simine, Silke. “Remembering the Future: Utopian and Dystopian Aspects of Glass and Iron Architecture in Walter Benjamin, Paul Scheerbarth, and W. G. Sebald.” In
Imagining the City, Volume 1: The Art of Urban Living
, edited by Christian (ed. and introd.) Emden, Catherine (ed. and introd.) Keen, and David (ed. and introd.) Midgley, 149?69.
Cultural History and Literary Imagination
(CuHLI): 7. Oxford, England: Peter Lang, 2006.
- Timothy Benson et al.:
Expressionist Utopias
. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001.
ISBN
0-520-23003-5
- (in German)
Mechthild Rausch:
Von Danzig ins Weltall. Paul Scheerbarts Anfangsjahre (1863?1895)
. Munchen: Ed. Text und Kritik 1997.
ISBN
3-88377-549-5
- Bletter, Rosemarie Haag. “Global Earthworks.”
Art Journal
42, no. 3 (Autumn 1982): 222?25.
https://doi.org/10.2307/776582
.
- Rosemarie Bletter: "Paul Scheerbart's Architectural Fantasies," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 34 (May 1975).
- Fischer, William B. “Whimsical Avant-Garde Oddball.”
Science Fiction Studies
40, no. 2 (2013): 389?91.
https://doi.org/10.5621/sciefictstud.40.2.0389
.
- Gelderloos, Carl. “‘Nowhere an Obstacle’: Transparency, Embodied Perception, and Becoming in Paul Scheerbart’s
Lesabendio
.”
Modernism/Modernity Print Plus
, May 2, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.26597/mod.0256
.
- (in German)
Paul Kaltefleiter, Berni Lorwald und Michael M. Schardt (Hrsg.):
Uber Paul Scheerbart. 100 Jahre Scheerbart-Rezeption
. 3 Bande. Paderborn: Igel-Verlag 1998.
ISBN
3-927104-23-X
(Band 1);
ISBN
3-927104-88-4
(Band 2);
ISBN
3-89621-055-6
(Band 3).
- (in German)
Uli Kohnle:
Paul Scheerbart. Eine Bibliographie
. Bellheim: Edition Phantasia 1994.
ISBN
3-924959-92-7
- Knoop, Christine Angela. “Architecture and Utopia in Scheerbart’s Rakkox Der Billionar.” In
Text and Image in Modern European Culture
, edited by Natasha (ed.) Grigorian, Thomas (ed.) Baldwin, Margaret (ed.) Rigaud-Drayton, and Robert (introd.) Lethbridge, 115?29. Comparative Cultural Studies (Comparative Cultural Studies). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue UP, 2012.
- Josiah McElheny and Christine Burgin eds.:
Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!: A Paul Scheerbart Reader
. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2014.
ISBN
978-0-226-20300-3
- Josiah McElheny:
The Light Club: On Paul Scheerbart's
The Light Club of Batavia. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2010.
ISBN
978-0-226-38941-7
- Partsch, Cornelius. “Paul Scheerbart and the Art of Science Fiction.”
Science Fiction Studies
29, no. 2 (2002): 202?20.
- Scheerbart, Paul.
Lesabendio. An Asteroid Novel
, trans. Christina Svendsen (Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press, 2012)
- Sharp, Dennis, ed.
Glass Architecture by Paul Scheerbart and Alpine Architecture by Bruno Taut
. Translated by James Palmes and Shirley Palmer. New York: Praeger, 1972.
- Stuart, John A. “Unweaving Narrative Fabric: Bruno Taut, Walter Benjamin, and Paul Scheerbart’s ‘The Gray Cloth.’”
Journal of Architectural Education
(1984-) 53, no. 2 (1999): 61?73.
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