History Commons^™

Jakob Bosshart (1862-1924), Regula A. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Bosshart, Jakob (1862-1924), Swiss novelist, short-story writer, and poet, was born in a lonely farm in Stürzikon near Zurich. He trained at a teachers college and later studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Paris, and Zurich, earning a Ph.D. degree at Zurich. An able educator, Bosshart served as rector of the cantonal gymnasium in Zurich for 17 years. Ill · health forced him to resign, and he subsequently moved to Clavadel, where he worked at his writing and fought a losing battle against tuberculosis.

Albert Gallatin, 176101849, A Genevan In The American Enlightenment: An Essay In Interpretation, Leo Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Albert Gallatin has been called "America's Forgotten Statesman."¹ A review of scholarly and public endeavors shows, however, that he has received serious attention, especially in recent decades. Best known is, perhaps, the excellent biography by Raymond Walters Jr. of 1957, a concise, learned, and balanced portrait.² In 1958 Rutgers University Press published Alexander Balinky's Albert Gallatin Fiscal Theories and Policies, a comprehensive study. Although Balinky profoundly misunderstood .Gallatin in favor of Hamiltonian programs, he offered nevertheless a scholarly treatise to be reckoned with.³ In 1963 Gayle Thornbrough edited the Correspondence of John Badollet and Albert Gallatin …

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Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

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Max Frisch (1911), Rolf Kieser

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Frisch, Max (1911-), Swiss novelist, playwright, diarist, and essayist, was born in Zurich. Frisch studied architecture and was a successful architect for several years before he decided in 1954 to devote all his time to writing.

Jacques Chessex (1934), Ursula Schoeni

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Chessex's work is largely autobiographical, replete with the theme of the defiance of death, marked by contradictions, and boldly stressing immoderate and violent feelings, and yet his language is almost classical in its restraint. In 1963 Chessex was awarded the Schiller Prize and in 1973 the Goncourt Prize.

Robert Otto Walser (1878-1956), Herbert L. Kaufman

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Walser, Robert Otto (1878-1956), Swiss feuilletonist novelist, and short-story writer, was born in Biel, canton Bern, the seventh of eight children. He left school at the age of 14 and worked for most of his life as a clerk in such places as Zurich, Wädenswil, Thun, Solothurn, Basel, and Stuttgart. After Walser's first book, Fritz Kochers Aufsätze (1904; Fritz Kocher's Essays) was published, he lived for some years with his brother Karl in Berlin.

Emil Staiger (1908), Marianne Burkhard

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Staiger, Emil (1908-), Swiss literary critic and translator was born in Kreuzlingen, canton Thurgau. For many years he was professor of German literature at the University of Zurich. Staiger gave new impulses to German literary criticism through comprehensive interpretations of individual works and a theoretical consideration of literature in connection with the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger.

Jakob Schaffner (1875-1944), Hans Bänziger

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Schaffner, Jakob (1875-1944), Swiss novelist and political essayist, was born in Basel and orphaned at an early age. A distressing picture of his childhood and the years he spent in "Demutt" (Beuggen), a religiously oriented orphanage near Basel, can be found in his most famous novel, Johannes (1922). This novel has been praised as the best Swiss educational novel since Gottfried Keller's Der grüne Heinrich, and for it Schaffner won the 1930 Swiss Schiller Prize. Schaffner. eventually became a shoemaker. He described his experiences as an apprentice in Basel in the novel Die Jünglingszeit des Johannes Schattenhold (1930; The …

Jürg Federspiel (1931), Rolf Kieser

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Federspiel, Jürg (1931-), Swiss novelist, poet, and short-story writer, was born in Winterthur, Zurich canton. His first book is a collection of short stories entitled Orangen und Tode (1961; Oranges and Deaths). This title signals the author's obsession with the principles of life and death, which, in his work, frequently take the form of an ardent, often violent dialogue between them. "I am a sensuous man," he maintains. "If there are no oranges anymore, I am for death. Mine."

Albert Béguin (1901-1957), Suzanne Nalbantian

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Béguin, Albert (1901-57), Swiss critic, translator, and editor, was born into a family of agnostic educators in La Chaux-de-Fonds, in the Neuchâtel canton. In his formative years, Béguin was attracted to the nonorthodox spiritual quality of such Catholic writers as Charles Péguy and Paul Claudel. Although Béguin eventually became a socialist dedicated to humanitarian concerns, his critical works usually emphasize the mystical aspects of literature. Béguin received his license in literature at the University of Geneva, and in 1925 he moved to Paris, where he was exposed to the ideological ferment of the era but was personally unable to adopt …

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921), Rolf Kieser

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Dürrenmatt, Friedrich (1921-), Swiss playwright, novelist, and essayist, was born in Konolfingen, canton Bern. He is Switzerland's most important playwright and one of the most accomplished dramatists in the succession of Bertolt Brecht. A student of philosophy and theology, Dürrenmatt experimented with short stories reminiscent of Franz Kafka. In 1947 he created his first theater scandal with the chaotic drama Es steht geschrieben (It Is Written), a combination of street ballad and religious comic strip. After the failure of Der Blinde (1948; The Blind Man), an allegorical drama in which the struggle between nihilism and faith ends with the victory …

Giuseppe Zoppi (1896-1952), Hermann W. Haller

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Zoppi, Giuseppe (1896-1952), Swiss poet, short-story writer, novelist, and essayist, was born in Broglio, canton Ticino. Zoppi left his beloved mountains at the age of 11 to enter a religious school near Ascona. He later studied at the University of Fribourg, graduating in 1920 with a thesis on the poetry of Francesco Chiesa. After teaching at gymnasiums in places such as Sankt Gallen, Lugano, and Locarno, Zoppi became professor of Italian literature at the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1931.

Demonic Patterns In Tasso And Spenser, John Mulryan

Quidditas

The term "demon" has embraced a variety of meanings over the centuries, and, while it can include the notion of one's own inner genius, or of a sprite midway between the gods and men, it is usually construed as an evil spirit, as Augustine said long ago:

... there is scarcely a man, no matter how well read and learned, whoo would dare say by way of praise to his slave, You have a demon, or who could doubt that the man to whom he said this would consider it a curse? Why, then, are we to subject ourselves to …

The Historical Evolution Of The Death Of King John In Three Renaissance Plays, Carole Levin

Quidditas

Although King John died of dysentery in 1216, three Renaissance dramas, John Bale's King Johan, The Troublesome Reign of King John, and Shakespeare's King John, reflect the influence of late medieval legends that John was dramatically poisoned. Bale and the anonymous author of The Troublesome Reign emphasize the horror of the king's death, dwelling upon his role as a religious leader; Shakespeare, however, separates John from the kingship, focusing our attention upon a frightened man. This separation echoes the medieval political theory that the kingship is composed of two bodies. By deliberately stripping away the Christian images that …

Distortion As A Means Of Reassessment: Marguerite De Navarre's Heptameron And The "Querelle Des Femmes", Deborah N. Losse

Quidditas

The crisis of sexual assault, with its many psychological implications, occupies a significant place in the narrative of Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron, composed in the first half of the sixteenth century at the height of the "Querelle des Femmes." If the storytellers conclude that parfaite amitié is with few exceptions inaccessible, it is in the scenes of sexual aggression that one witnesses the ascendancy of human passion over the formalized code of courtly love.

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The Bridge

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Table Of Contents

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Peter Lassen: Danish Pioneer Of California, Franklin D. Scott

The Bridge

"The Dane Peter Lassen," or " Peter Lassen, a Danish Blacksmith," appears in almost every memoir dealing with early northern California. His Danishness was obvious, though no one bothers to explain why. Was his speech the telltale feature? The man was almost thirty years of age when he left Denmark, and he had had no opportunity to learn English while his tongue was ductile. He came to California in the spring of 1840, at the beginning of a decade of decision. At that moment Indians inhabited the land, Russians were still established on the California coast, Mexicans held title to …

Language Transition And Danish Children's Schools In The U.S., Ejnar Farstrup

The Bridge

Very few Danish immigrants who came to the United States just prior to and immediately following the beginning of the Twentieth Century were acquainted with the English language. Immigrants of every ethnic group have countless tales, some comic and some rather serious, of the difficulties which befell them. Years after their arrival, most of them could regale themselve at length with stories of misinterpretations and the blending of language from their own experiences. A good sense of humor carried most of them through. Others succumbed to a nostalgia which drove them back to the homeland. Still others, who might have …

Life On Lilac Hill Sketches Of Karen And Chresten Pedersen's Prairie Years, Karen M. Kadgihn

The Bridge

A jackrabbit was sunning himself on a rock in the warm March sun, stretched out and went to sleep. Suddenly a noise awakened him and he jumped quickly away at right angles to where the noise had originated. From a safe distance he stopped, sat up to see what had disturbed his siesta, wiggling his ears and nose as he watched another of those strange creatures going by his sunning rock. What were they? They had been passing in increasing numbers, and had actually made parallel tracks right by his rock!

Kierkegaard Who Actually Emigrated To America, Carl Woltzer

The Bridge

Niels Andreas Kierkegaard, born April 13, 1809, was apparently destined by his father, a merchant in Copenhagen, to take over the family business. His two brothers were top students in the University-bound curriculum, but Niels was steered into business. Dissatisfaction with the course his life was taking and frustration with parental pressure led him in 1832 to seek advance payment on his inheritance and to emigrate to America, where he by no means lived the life of a prodigal son . In letters to his family, the first one from Providence, Rhode Island, and dated January 8, 1833, he told …

Contributors

The Bridge

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A Sampler, Carl Hansen

The Bridge

Note: Seventy years after his death the Danish-born writer Carl Hansen (1860-1916) remains, among those who read Danish, a highly valued interpreter of the immigrant experience in the United States. Hansen was the subject of two articles in earlier issue (Vol. 2:1, 1979) of The Bridge. His short stories and one novel are together a landmark in the American literature written in Danish , but the books have become inaccessible to many and, as to language, closed to a large audience who would appreciate his ability to sketch Danish-American personalities and lives. In Tyler, Minnesota, where he lived until 1910, …

"Bring . .. The Books." Notes On The Danish Lutheran Publishing House, 1877-1963, Mark Friis-Hansen

The Bridge

"The mental alertness and spiritual hunger of the Apostle Paul shine through the words of his request to his young friend Timothy. The business of our Danish Lutheran Publishing House is founded on that, and on our Lord 's command to His Church to bring the Gospel to every nation . . . Its business is not to make money, but to do the printing of the Church. Its success or failure is to be measured not by the figures in its "profits" or "losses" columns, but in the volume or extent of its distribution of Christian books and other …

The Danish Dip, Edna H. Hong

The Bridge

My first reaction to our son's Danish school teacher was one of dismay, for I was still under the dismal domination of the American veneration of youthiness. Somehow the keen, kind blue eyes and the lean, lithe body of the grey-haired gentleman who rose at his elevated desk to greet me when I entered the school room, accompanied by my wretched, reluctant, rebellious, ready-to-bolt nine year old, did not tranquilize the depressing discovery that the teacher Theodore was to have his first year in a foreign school was an old man - at least sixty!

A Short History Of The Life Of N. J. Blagen

The Bridge

In 1920 the Danish immigrant Niels Jensen Blagen looked back on his long, vigorous life, fifty years of which had been spent in the United States, and composed the autobiographical sketch which follows . Perhaps it was characteristic of N. J. Blagen that, as a man of action, he did not spend more time than he did recounting his remarkable career as a builder and lumberman in the Pacific Northwest. In an English that sometimes betrays through unusual phrasing the writer's foreign origin, Blagen takes the reader from 1850 and Rabylille on the island of M0n to 1920 and Portland, …

The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Udvandrerarkiv, Aalborg, Inger Bladt

The Bridge

On July 3, 1982, Det Danske Udvandrerarkiv in Aalborg will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary and look back on an existence marked by great difficulties. During critical times, in fact, its continued existence often seemed in doubt.