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Jan 1, 2008
(Gitschin, now Jičin, Czech Republic, 1874 -- 1936, Vienna),
came with his Jewish parents as a 3-year-old to Vienna, where he spent the whole of his life except for brief visits to other cities. He broke off his studies at Vienna University when he discovered his ability to earn his living by writing. He began his journalistic work in 1892 with a review of Hauptmann's
Die Weber
for the Wiener Literatur-Zeitung. In the 1890s he contributed to a number of German as well as Viennese journals and published two pamphlets, Die demolirte Litteratur (1897, repr. 1972, first in serial form in the Wiener Rundschau, 1896 -- 7) and the anti-Zionist Eine Krone für Zion (1898). The former marks his breach with his associates of the ‘Jung-Wien’ circle, the latter a disillusion that led to his renouncing the Jewish faith in 1899 and joining the Roman Catholic Church, from which he seceded in 1923.A pronounced individualist, Kraus founded in 1899 his own periodical,
Die Fackel
; it continued to appear, though latterly at irregular intervals, until his death. A man of great intellectual integrity and equal mental agility, Kraus proved himself a formidable, often dreaded and hated, satirist. For years he attacked the Viennese press, because he regarded its imprecision of language and its literary pretensions as corrupting cultural influences. The Neue Freie Presse was his principal target, partly because it was the most ‘literary’ of the Viennese newspapers. Kraus identified personal and political integrity with integrity of expression, and carried on a relentless single-handed campaign against slovenly, pretentious, or deceptive language. He combined a concern for social reform with a rigorous cultural conservatism, but refused to involve himself in party politics. He attacked individuals as well as parties, groups, and ideas; particular targets were H.
Bahr, A.
Kerr, and M.
Harden. One of his causes was penal reform (Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität, 1908, and Die chinesische Mauer, 1910). His reaction to the 1914 -- 18 War was repulsion, rising to violent hostility expressed in the huge, apocalyptic tragedy
Die letzten Tage der Menschheit
(final version 1926). Collected anti-war essays appeared in book form as Weltgericht (2 vols., 1919). In the 1920s he published a succession of satirical plays, including Literatur (1921), a riposte to F.
Werfel's
Spiegelmensch
, and Die Unüberwindlichen (1928). Kraus made himself unpopular with many former associates through his support of Dollfuß, whom he regarded as a bulwark against National Socialism. The disaster which 1933 represented evoked no commensurate public utterance from Kraus, who, however, wrote a long prophetic denunciation intended as an issue of Die Fackel in 1933 but held it back from publication in book form, partly out of fear of consequences for his friends in Germany. It appeared as Die dritte Walpurgisnacht in 1952. Notable other publications include the collections of aphorisms, Sprüche und Widersprüche (1909), Pro domo et mundo (1912), and Nachts (1918), and of the tracts Maxi-milian Harden. Eine Erledigung (1907) and Nestroy und die Nachwelt (1912). His poems appeared as Worte in Versen (9 vols., 1916 -- 30). No writer has so vigorously and tenaciously held that language is a moral criterion, and that its abuse or misuse proves moral cor-ruption. His essays on language appeared in 1937 as Die Sprache (ed. P.
Berger).In his last years Kraus adapted some plays of Shakespeare as Shakespeares Dramen. Für Hörer und Leser bearbeitet (2 vols., 1934 -- 5, ed. by H.
Fischer as supplement to Werke, 2 vols., 1970), and in 1933 published the Sonnets as Shakespeares Sonette. Nachdichtung von Karl Kraus (repr. 1964). He condemned the renderings by S.
George in Sakrileg an George oder Sühne an Shakespeare? (Die Fackel, Dec.
1932). One of the greatest satirists, Kraus was devoted to what he conceived to be the highest spiritual values. Devastating in his criticism of the contemporary theatre, including the Burgtheater and the Salzburg Festival, he advanced as an alternate form of performance the notion of the ‘Theater der Dichtung’ that underlies his extensive activity as a reader of plays and lecturer. These public performances served to promote both his own works and views and the works of favourites such as Nestroy and Offenbach (1819 -- 80). His polemics against Heine have remained controversial.
Die Fackel appeared in 39 vols., 1968 -- 73, and
Werke (14 vols.), ed.
H.
Fischer
, 1954 -- 67,
Frühe Schriften (2 vols.), ed.
J.
J.
Braakenburg
, in 1979,
Briefe an Sidonie Nádherný von Borutin (2 vols.), ed.
H.
Fischer
et al., in 1974, and correspondence with Otto
Stoessl, ed. G.
I.
Carr, in 1996. Schriften (20 vols.), ed. Chr.
Wagenknecht, appeared 1986 -- 94.
© Oxford University Press, 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005
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