Péter Szondi (; 27 May 1929,
Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
– 18 October 1971,
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
) 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 ( ; 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 now-discredited 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, northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen, Lower Saxony, Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, ...
.
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 university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...
, 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 or education to the reader, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pie ...
and
comparative literature
Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...
.
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 (; ; born Paul Antschel; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a German-speaking Romanian poet, Holocaust survivor, and literary translation, literary translator. He adopted his pen name (an anagram of the Romanian spelling Ancel ...
, 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.
Life and work
Susan Bernofsky is best known for bringing the Swiss writer Robert Walser to the attention of the English-speaking world (in a "sec ...
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), ''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 human art. ''Telos'' is the root of the modern term teleology, the study of purposiveness or of objects with a view to their aims, ...
'' (140, Fall 2007)
1929 births
1971 deaths
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivors
Comparative literature academics
Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin
Hungarian Jews
Writers from Budapest
Suicides by drowning in Germany
Suicides in West Germany
Hungarian emigrants to Germany
1971 suicides
{{Hungary-academic-bio-stub