Hans Magnus Enzensberger

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Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022) was a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Andreas Thalmayr, Elisabeth Ambras, Linda Quilt and Giorgio Pellizzi. Enzensberger was regarded as one of the literary founding figures of the Federal Republic of Germany and wrote more than 70 books,<ref name="FAZ1">Template:Cite news</ref> with works translated into 40 languages. He was one of the leading authors in Group 47, and influenced the 1968 West German student movement. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize and the Pour le Mérite, among many others.

Life and careerEdit

Enzensberger was born in 1929 in Kaufbeuren, a small town in Bavaria, as the eldest of four boys.<ref name="guardian.co.uk">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His father, Andreas Enzensberger, worked as a telecommunications technician, and his mother, Leonore (Ledermann) Enzensberger, a kindergarten teacher.<ref name="DW.COM" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Enzensberger was part of the last generation of intellectuals whose writing was shaped by first-hand experience of Nazi Germany.Template:Efn The Enzensberger family moved to Nuremberg in 1931.<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/> Julius Streicher, the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic Der Stürmer, was their next-door neighbour. Hans Magnus joined the Hitler Youth in his teens, but was expelled soon afterwards. "I have always been incapable of being a good comrade. I can't stay in line. It's not in my character. It may be a defect, but I can't help it."<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/>

In 1949, after completing his Abitur in Nördlingen,<ref name="Kreiszeitung 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Enzensberger studied literature and philosophy at the universities of Erlangen, Freiburg, and Hamburg, and at the Sorbonne in Paris, receiving his doctorate in 1955 for a thesis about Clemens Brentano's poetry.<ref name="Enzensberger 1955 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="griffinpoetryprize.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Studienstiftung">Studienstiftung 90 Jahre, 90 Köpfe</ref> Until 1957 he worked as a radio editor in Stuttgart with Alfred Andersch;<ref name="Biografie WHOS WHO" /> he criticized in a radio essay Der SpiegelTemplate:'s language style.<ref name="DER SPIEGEL 1957">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He became one of the leading authors in the Group 47, an institution that shaped the culture of Germany after World War II.<ref name="SZ 2022" /><ref name="Mund 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1957 Group 47 member Ingeborg Bachmann and Enzensberger began to exchange letters.<ref name="Deutschlandfunk 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Bachmann Enzensberger Lengauer 2018 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> His first literary publication was the poem collection verteidigung der wölfe (Defense of the Wolves) in 1957, followed by landessprache in 1960, both originally in all-lowercase.<ref name="Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Rroji Hiebel">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They were perceived as opposition to the establishment of those who had been on battle fields and in campsTemplate:Clarify, described as "furious, elegant and of controlled rage" ("furios, elegant und von kontrollierter Wut").<ref name="FAZ1" /> He played the role "zorniger junger Mann" (angry young man) as British role models.<ref name="taz 2022">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1960, he was the editor of Museum der modernen Poesie (Museum of modern poetry), an anthology of poems by contemporary authors in a juxtaposition of original and translation, which was rare at the time.<ref name="FAZ1" /><ref name="Enzensberger 2002 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> From 1960 to 1961, Enzensberger was a literary editor ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) at Suhrkamp in Frankfurt.<ref name="Biografie WHOS WHO">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He spoke several languages, intensified by travels: English, French, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish and some Russian.<ref name="FAZ1" /> With a volume of essays published in 1962, Einzelheiten, he entered the position of a critical intellectual which he held for life.<ref name="taz 2022" />

Between 1965 and 1975 he lived briefly in the United States (Fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies Wesleyan University)Template:Efn<ref name="Enzensberger 2015">Template:Cite magazine</ref> and Cuba.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> He had the composer Hans Werner Henze invited to Cuba in 1969, and wrote the libretto for his El Cimarrón for baritone and three instrumentalists based on the memories of the escaped slave Esteban Montejo.<ref name="Ensemble">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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Kursbuch, first edition

From 1965, Enzensberger edited the magazine Template:Ill;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> his writings influenced the 1968 West German student movement.<ref name="SZ 2022" /> He was editor of the prestigious book series Template:Ill, published in Frankfurt, from 1985; it reached almost 250 titles.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He promoted the writers Ryszard Kapuscinski, Raoul Schrott, Irene Dische, Christoph Ransmayr, and W.G. Sebald, among others.<ref name="DW.COM" /> Together with Gaston Salvatore, Enzensberger was the founder of the left-wing monthly Template:Ill.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The literary journal survived for only two years.<ref name="DW.COM" />

In his 1987 book Ach Europa! Wahrnehmungen aus sieben Ländern, Enzensberger used already the terms Ossi and Wessi.<ref name="Grub 2003 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref>

Personal lifeEdit

Enzensberger was the older brother of the author Christian Enzensberger.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was married three times, including once to Masha Enzensberger, and had two daughters, including Template:Ill.<ref name="DW.COM">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mathematics was his passion.<ref name="DER SPIEGEL 2009">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Enzensberger lived in Norway, Italy, Mexico, Cuba, the United States, West Berlin, and since 1979 in Munich<ref name="Hegelman 2022" /><ref name="Kreiszeitung 2022" /> where he died on 24 November 2022, at age 93.<ref name="SZ 2022">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="DER SPIEGEL 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Zeitung 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

WorkEdit

Enzensberger wrote in a sarcastic, ironic tone in many of his poems.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> For example, the poem "Middle Class Blues" consists of various typicalities of middle class life, with the phrase "we can't complain" repeated several times, and concludes with "what are we waiting for?". Many of his poems also feature themes of civil unrest over economic- and class-based issues. Though primarily a poet and essayist, he also ventured into theatre, film, opera, radio drama, reportage and translation. He wrote novels and several books for children (including The Number Devil, an exploration of mathematics, translated in 34 languages)<ref name="Hanser Literaturverlage">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and was co-author of a book for German as a foreign language, (Die Suche).<ref name="Volker Eismann 1993 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> He often wrote his poems and letters in lower case.<ref name="Lopez Bewerunge 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Tumult, written in 2014, is an autobiographical reflection of his 1960s as a left-wing sympathizer visiting the Soviet Union and Cuba.<ref name="Enzensberger 2014 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Deutschlandfunk 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His own work has been translated into more than 40 languages.<ref name="griffinpoetryprize.com" />

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Landsberger Poesieautomat (Poetry-Machine)

Enzensberger also invented and collaborated in the construction of a machine which automatically composes poems (Template:Ill).<ref name="Enzensberger 2000 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> This was used during the 2006 Football World Cup to commentate on games.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Enzensberger criticized the German orthography reform, the dominance of the internet and the construction of the EU.<ref name="Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Enzensberger translated Adam Zagajewski, Lars Gustafsson, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden and César Vallejo.<ref name="Konzett 2000 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="guardian.co.uk" /><ref name="FAZ3">Template:Cite news</ref> With Irene Dische he wrote the libretto for Sallinen's fifth opera The Palace.<ref name="thoughts">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The theatre premiere of a drama after his long poem Der Untergang der Titanic on 7 May 1980 was directed by George Tabori at the Werkraumtheater Munich.<ref name="Suhrkamp Theater Verlag 2021">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

"Consciousness industry"Edit

Enzensberger's 1974 work The consciousness industry; on literature, politics and the media gave rise to the term "consciousness industry", which identifies the mechanisms through which the human mind is reproduced as a social product. Foremost among these mechanisms are the institutions of mass media and education. According to Enzensberger, the mind industry does not produce anything specific; rather, its main business is to perpetuate the existing order of man's domination over man.<ref>Enzensberger, H. M. (1974). The Consciousness Industry: On Literature, Politics and the Media. New York: Continuum Books/ Seabury Press.</ref> Hans Haacke elaborates on the consciousness industry as it applies to the arts in a wider system of production, distribution, and consumption.<ref name="HaackeH83">Haacke, H. (1983/2006). "Museums: Managers of consciousness," in Hans Haacke : For real : Works 1959-2006. M. Flügge & R. Fleck (eds.), H. Haacke & S. Lindberg (trans.) pp. 273–281. Düsseldorf : Richter.</ref>Template:Rp Haacke specifically implicates museums as manufacturers of aesthetic perception that fail to acknowledge their intellectual, political, and moral authority: "rather than sponsoring intelligent, critical awareness, museums thus tend to foster appeasement."<ref name="HaackeH83"/>Template:Rp

Honors and awardsEdit

In 2009, Enzensberger received a special lifetime recognition award given by the trustees of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry,<ref name="griffinpoetryprize.com"/> which also awards the annual Griffin Poetry Prize.<ref name="Hegelman 2022" />

1951–1954 Grant from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes<ref name="Studienstiftung" />
1963 Georg Büchner Prize<ref name="Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1980 Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings<ref name="Herald 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1985 Heinrich-Böll-Preis<ref name="Hegelman 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1993 Template:Ill; see also Erich Maria Remarque<ref name="Stadt Osnabrück – Die Friedensstadt 2023 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1997 Ernst-Robert-Curtius-Preis<ref name="Startseite">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1998 Heinrich Heine Prize of Düsseldorf<ref name="Online 1998">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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1999 Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2002 Prince of Asturias Communications and Humanities award<ref name="IT">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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2002 Ludwig Börne Prize<ref name="FAZ2">Template:Cite news</ref>
2009 Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award<ref name="Hegelman 2022" />
2009 Sonning Prize – awarded for "commendable work for the benefit of European culture"<ref name="GmbH 1970">Template:Cite news</ref>
2012 Honorary degree from Bard College in New York<ref name="PRWeb 2012">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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