Péter Szondi (; 27 May 1929,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

– 18 October 1971,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

) was a celebrated literary scholar and philologist, originally from Hungary.

Biography

Szondi's father was the Hungarian-Jewish psychiatrist and psychoanalyst

Léopold Szondi Léopold Szondi ( hu, Szondi Lipót ; March 11, 1893 – January 24, 1986) was a Hungarian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, psychopathologist and Professor of psychology. Founder of the concept of fate analysis. He is known for the psychological ...

, who settled in Switzerland after his 1944 release after five months in

Bergen-Belsen Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...

. In 1965, Péter became a Professor at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

, where he led the Institute for General and Comparative Literature. His fields were the

history of literature The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...

and

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

. He committed suicide in 1971 by drowning himself in the Halensee in Berlin on 18 October, leaving unfinished his book about the work of his friend

Paul Celan Paul Celan (; ; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a Romanian-born German-language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți (German: Czernowitz), in the then Kingdom of Romania (now Chernivtsi, U ...

, who had killed himself the year before.

Works

* ''Über eine "Freie Universität".'' Suhrkamp, 1973 * ''Die Theorie des bürgerlichen Trauerspiels im 18. Jahrhundert.'' Suhrkamp, 1973 * '' Celan-Studien.'' Suhrkamp, 1972 = ''Celan Studies'', trans.

Susan Bernofsky Susan Bernofsky (born 1966) is an American translator of German-language literature and author. She is best known for bringing the Swiss writer Robert Walser to the attention of the English-speaking world, translating many of his books and writin ...

with Harvey Mendelsohn, Stanford University Press, 2003. * '' Hölderlin-Studien.'' Insel, 1967 * ''Satz und Gegensatz.'' Insel, 1964 * ''Der andere Pfeil.'' Insel, 1963 * ''Versuch über das Tragische.'' Insel, 1961 * ''Theorie des modernen Dramas.'' Suhrkamp, 1956 * "Hope in the Past: On Walter Benjamin", reprinted in Benjamin, W. (trans.

Howard Eiland Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...

), ''Berlin Childhood Around 1900'', 2006, Belknap Press arvard UP

References

External links

Peter Szondi and Critical Hermeneutics
an issue of ''

TELOS Telos (; ) is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of a work of human art. Intentional actualization of potential or inherent purpose,"Telos.''Philosophy Terms'' Retrieved 3 May 2020. ...

'' (140, Fall 2007) 1929 births 1971 deaths Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivors Comparative literature academics Free University of Berlin faculty Hungarian Jews Writers from Budapest Suicides by drowning in Germany Hungarian emigrants to Germany 1971 suicides {{Hungary-academic-bio-stub