Karl Kraus

Karl Kraus was born on the 28^th April 1874; he died on the 2^nd June 1936. He was an Austrian writer and a journalist; he is known as a satirist, aphorist, a poet, a playwright and an aphorist, Karl Kraus directed his satire to the press, German culture and the politics of both Austria and Germany.

source of picture: gutenberg.spiegel.de

 Karl Kraus was born into the wealthy Jewish family of Jacob Kraus, papermaker and his wife Ernestine, née Kantor, in Jičín, Bohemia.

His family moved to the city of Vienna in the year 1877 and the mother died in the year 1891.

Karl Kraus enrolled to study law at the University of Vienna in the year 1892. Starting in April of the year 1892, Karl Kraus started to make some contributions to the paper of the country called Wiener Literaturzeitung, and he started with the critic of the Gerhart Hauptmann's The Weavers. He tried to perform as an actor in a small theatre of the country but was not successful.

Karl Kraus changed his field in the year 1894 to Philosophy and German Literature and he discontinued in the year 1896.

Selected works

Ø  Die demolierte Literatur (1897)

Ø  Eine Krone für Zion (1898)

Ø  Sittlichkeit und Kriminalität (1908)

Ø  Sprüche und Widersprüche (1909)

Ø  Die chinesische Mauer (1910)

Ø  Pro domo et mundo (1912)

Ø  Nestroy und die Nachwelt (1913)

Ø  Worte in Versen (1916–30)

Ø  Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (1918)

Ø  Weltgericht (1919)

Ø  Nachts (1919)

Ø  Untergang der Welt durch schwarze Magie (1922)

Ø  Literatur (1921)

Ø  Traumstück (1922)

Ø  Die letzten Tage der Menschheit: Tragödie in fünf Akten mit Vorspiel und Epilog (1922)

Ø  Wolkenkuckucksheim (1923)

Ø  Traumtheater (1924)

Ø  Epigramme (1927)

Ø  Die Unüberwindlichen (1928)

Ø  Literatur und Lüge (1929)

Ø  Shakespeares Sonette (1933)

Ø  Die Sprache (posthumous, 1937)

Ø  Die dritte Walpurgisnacht (posthumous, 1952)

Some work has been re-issued in recent years:

Ø  Die letzten Tage der Menschheit, 1992

Ø  Die Sprache

Ø  Die chinesische Mauer, 1999

Ø  Aphorismen. Sprüche und Widersprüche. 1986

Ø  Sittlichkeit und Krimininalität, 1987.

Ø  Dramen. Literatur, Traumstück, Die unüberwindlichen u.a., 1989

Ø  Literatur und Lüge, 1999

Ø  Shakespeares Sonette, Nachdichtung, 1977,

Ø  Theater der Dichtung mit Bearbeitungen von Shakespeare-Dramen, 1994

Ø  Hüben und Drüben, 1993

Ø  Die Stunde des Gerichts, 1992.

Ø  Untergang der Welt durch schwarze Magie, 1989

Ø  Brot und Lüge, 1991

Ø  Die Katastrophe der Phrasen, 1994

Works in English translation

Ø  The Last Days of Mankind: a Tragedy in Five Acts (1974)

Ø  No Compromise: Selected Writings of Karl Kraus (1977)

Ø  In These Great Times: A Karl Kraus Reader (1984)

Ø  Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus' Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry (1990)

Ø  Half Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths: selected aphorisms (1990)

Ø  Dicta and Contradicta, tr. Jonathan McVity (2001), a collection of aphorisms.

Ø  The Last Days of Mankind (1999)

Ø  An online translation into English of The Last Days of Mankind (by Michael Russell) is available at http://www.thelastdaysofmankind.com .

Ø  The Kraus Project: Essays by Karl Kraus (2013)

Ø  In This Great Time and Other Writings