Ernst Herbeck (9 October 1920,
Stockerau,
Lower Austria – 11 September 1991) was an
Austrian
poet. In 1940, at the age of 20, Herbeck was committed to the national
mental hospital in Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) where he spent almost his entire life, writing thousands of
poems, until his death on 11 September 1991.
Life
Herbeck grew up in
Stockerau,
Lower Austria, where at the age of 20 whilst working as an unskilled worker in a
munitions factory, began displaying signs of
schizophrenia.
He was first committed in 1940, but at times his condition would improve momentarily. In October 1944 he was even called into
military service only to be discharged in March 1945.
A year after the end of the war Herbeck was committed indefinitely.
After fifteen years in an institution Herbeck began writing poetry, often referred to as naive, his poetry is notable for its brevity and peculiar turn of phrase.
The titles of many of his poems are the names of animals that were offered to him by his
psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
Leo Navratil as exercises.
Two years before his death Herbeck gave over 1,000 of his handwritten sheets to the Austrian national library as donation.
Legacy
W. G. Sebald
Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...
wrote an article about Herbeck entitled ''Das Häschens Kind, der kleine Has'': On the poet Ernst Herbeck's totem animal, the hare, collected in the book
Campo Santo. Sebald also recounts a visit with an elderly Ernst Herbeck in his novel ''Vertigo''. Herbeck also featured as a character in
Philipp Weiss
Philipp Weiss (born 5 February 1982 in Vienna) is an Austrian writer and playwright. In September 2018, he published his critically acclaimed debut novel, '' Am Weltenrand sitzen die Menschen und lachen''.
Early life and background
Weiss was born ...
's 2013 play ''
Ein schöner Hase ist meistens der Einzellne
''Ein schöner Hase ist meistens der Einzellne'' (''A Beautiful Rabbit is Mostly the Individual'') is a 2013 play by Austrian playwright and writer Philipp Weiss. It is based on the true story of two schizophrenic patients of the Gugging mental in ...
''.
References
External links
Twelve Poems by Ernst Herbeck, Translated by Gary SullivanErnst Herbeck blog with poems in German and in English translation by Gary Sullivan electronic sound performance by
Karlheinz Essl
Karlheinz Essl (born 15 August 1960) is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser, and composition teacher.
Biography
Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition (under Friedri ...
* Robin Pape, Burkhart Brückner
Biography of Ernst Herbeckin
Biographical Archive of Psychiatry (BIAPSY) 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herbeck, Ernst
1920 births
1991 deaths
People from Stockerau
20th-century German poets
German male poets
20th-century German male writers