Ein Ring

by Paul Heyse

Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (1830-1914) war ein deutscher Schriftsteller. 1847 beginnt Hyse mit dem Studium der klassischen Philologie in Berlin. Heyses erste Novelle Marion wird im Tunnel 1852 ausgezeichnet. Das später mehrfach vertonte Spanische Liederbuch mit Übersetzungen von Geibel und Heyse ist der Beginn einer lebenslangen Übersetzertätigkeit, in der Heyse vor allem als Vermittler der italienischen Literatur hervorragendes leistet. 1854 trifft Heyse in München ein. Bereits in seinem ersten Jahr in München gründet Heyse mit Geibel die Dichtervereinigung Krokodil. Die berühmteste seiner über 150 Erzählungen, L'Arrabiata, veröffentlicht Heyse 1855. Im Jahr 1865 entsteht sein populärstes Stück Colberg. Heyse wird 1871 Mitglied des bayrischen Maximiliansorden für Wissenschaft und Kunst. 1910 wurde er als erster deutscher Autor belletristischer Werke mit dem Nobelpreis für Literatur ausgezeichnet. Zu Heyses Werke zählen u. a. Das Mädchen von Treppi (1855), Die Einsamen (1857), Der Weinhüter (1862-63), Die Witwe von Pisa (1865), Beatrice (1867), Der Letzte Zentaur (1904) und Ein Ring (1904).

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 2, 2009

About the author

Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a distinguished German writer and translator. A member of two important literary societies, the Tunnel über der Spree in Berlin and Die Krokodile in Munich, he wrote novels, poetry, 177 short stories, and about sixty dramas. The sum of Heyse's many and varied productions made him a dominant figure among German men of letters.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1910 "as a tribute to the consummate artistry, permeated with idealism, which he has demonstrated during his long productive career as a lyric poet, dramatist, novelist and writer of world-renowned short stories."

Reviews

[Norbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

In addition to 180 novellas, eight novels and 68 dramas, Paul Heyse wrote countless poems and translated works by Italian authors. During his lifetime (1830-1914), the winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize for Literature and companion of Gottfried Keller, Fontane and Storm was one of the most widely read authors, but he is now almost forgotten.

The autobiographical novella "A Ring" from 1904 describes a love that is reciprocated but unfulfilled. Heyse's bedridden maternal aunt recalls her only real love in retrospect. When she was already forty years old, she was courted by a Frenchman ten years her junior. As part of Frankfurt's upper class and a mother of three, she once hesitated, but now on her deathbed she regrets her hesitation and recounts the events of that time to her nephew.

All this reads smoothly, despite some French or Yiddish terms, and is not kitschy. If Paul Heyse's work were not in the public domain, I would probably never have read this novella, but I liked it - in any case, I did not find it worse than works by Theodor Storm or Gottfried Keller.