Theodor Fontane Biography

Dromo's Den

FONTANE, Theodor (1819-98). A noteworthy German author, of French descent, born at Neuruppin (Brandenburg). After study at the Industrial School of Berlin and three years (1840-43) spent as an apothecary's apprentice at Leipzig and Dresden, he turned to the more congenial activities of journalism and literature. He was an editor on the staff of the Neue Preussische Zeitung from 1860 to 1870 and from 1870 to 1889 wrote authoritatively as dramatic critic for the Vossische Zeitung. In 1870 he visited the scene of war in France and was taken prisoner at Domrémy. He was a close student of the thought and literature of England, where he resided in 1844, 1852, and 1855-59, chiefly for the purpose of investigating the old ballads which had so important an effect upon his own earlier work as a poet. In 1876 he was elected first secretary of the Berlin Academy of Arts and in 1891 received 3000 marks from the German Emperor in recognition of his services to German literature. He published two collections of verse: Gedichte (1851; 8th ed., 1902) and Balladen (1861), of whose contents such poems as "Archibald Douglas," done in the very spirit of their English prototypes, placed him among the foremost modern ballad writers. Volumes based on his observations in Great Britain-Aus England (1860); Jenseit des Tweed (1860)-or on the Franco-Prussian War Kriegsgefangen (1871, 6th ed., 1904); Der Krieg gegen Frankreich, (1873-75)--were much esteemed in Germany, and his Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg (1861-82; numerous subsequent editions) established him as the peculiar interpreter of that region. It was from Brandenburg also that he drew the material for many of the novels that made him famous. These began in 1878 with Vor dem Sturm and closed with his masterpieces, Effi Briest (1895) and Der Stechlin (1899). His Irrungen, Wirrungen, (1888; 8th ed., 1902) is credited with the introduction of what has become known as the Berlin type of fiction. It certainly allied him with the younger school, the so-called realists. But his realism was quite individual and dominated by his own kindly personality. After the death of Freytag (1895) he occupied a position of prominence in European literature. No notice of him would be complete without mention of his reminiscences, Meine Kinderjahre (1894), and Von Zwanzig bis Dreissig (1898). Consult Servaes, Theodor Fontane (Berlin, 1900), and Eric Schmidt in Charakteristiken, vol ii (ib,. 1901).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. VIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 768.