Share
Jan 1, 2008
(Prague, 1890 -- 1945, Beverly Hills, California),
grew up in the Jewish quarter of Prague and was a friend of Kafka. He studied at Prague, Leipzig, and Hamburg universities, served a year as a volunteer (Einjährig-Freiwilliger) in the Austrian army, and became a publisher's reader. During the 1914 -- 18 War he served on the Russian front until 1917 and after the war lived in Vienna.Werfel first came into prominence as a writer during his Viennese years. In 1929 he married Alma Mahler (1879 -- 1964), widow of the composer Gustav
Mahler. In 1938 Werfel and his wife emigrated to France, fled to Spain in 1940, and made their way with H.
Mann to the USA, where they settled in California. Werfel had a serious heart attack in 1943, from which he did not fully recover. The basis of Werfel's convictions and work was religious, and his consciousness of participation in the Jewish fate and mission was fundamental; but he was also strongly attracted to the Roman Catholic Church and yearned for the brotherhood of man.Werfel's earliest Expressionist verse, Der Weltfreund and Wir sind (1913), was followed by Einander (1915, containing his adaptation of the hymn ‘Veni creator spiritus’), Gesänge aus den drei Reichen (1917), Der Gerichtstag (1919), and Beschwörungen (1923), his last important contribution to poetry. A play, Besuch in Elysium, appeared in a periodical in 1912 (in book form 1920); more significant was an adaptation of Euripides'
The Trojan Women, Die Troerinnen (1915) preceding his post-war plays
Spiegelmensch
(1920), Bocksgesang (1921), Schweiger (1922), Juarez und Maximilian (1924, dealing with the conflict between the deposed president and the emperor imposed by France and executed in 1867, see Maximilian, Erzherzog), Paulus unter den Juden (1926), Das Reich Gottes in Böhmen (1930, treating the conflict between Cardinal Cesarini and the Hussite leader Prokop in the 15th c.), and Der Weg der Verheißung (1935).
Jacobowsky und der Oberst
(1944), Werfel's last play, published as Komödie einer Tragödie, centres on the problems of race and emigration.Best known as a novelist, Werfel expressed in
Verdi. Roman der Oper
(1924) his love for music, especially opera, which is further borne out by his excellent translations of La Forza del destino (Die Macht des Schicksals, 1926), Simone Boccanegra (1929), and Don Carlos (1932, based on Schiller's play.) The novel Der Abituriententag. Die Geschichte einer Jugendschuld (1925) was followed by
Barbara oder Die Frömmigkeit
(1929) and
Die Geschwister von Neapel
(1931).
Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh
(1933) recounts one of the overlooked horrors of the 1914 -- 18 War;
Höret die Stimme
(1937) was posthumously retitled Jeremias (1956),
Der veruntreute Himmel
. Die Geschichte einer Magd (1939) has affinities with Barbara, and
Das Lied von Bernadette
(1941), written to fulfil a vow made at Lourdes in 1940, commonly referred to as the ‘Lourdes-Roman’. The posthumous novel
Stern der Ungeborenen
(1946), a Utopian work, expresses anxiety over the future. Of Werfel's few Novellen the most important are Nicht der Mörder, der Ermordete ist schuldig (1920), Der Tod des Kleinbürgers (1927), and Geheimnis eines Menschen (1927). Zwischen Oben und Unten is a collection of essays, published posthumously in 1946.Werfel's Gesammelte Werke (8 vols.) appeared 1927 -- 36,
Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben (15 vols.), ed.
A.
D.
Klarmann
, 1946 -- 67.
© Oxford University Press, 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005
0 COMMENTSON THIS ARTICLE
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
COMMENTING RULES & FAQ