Ursula Wertheim (8 October 1919 – 26 July 2006) was a German

literary scholar Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. T ...

and

university teacher Academic personnel, also known as faculty member or member of the faculty (in North American usage) or academics or academic staff (in British, Australia, and New Zealand usage), are vague terms that describe teachers or research staff of a school ...

at Jena in East Germany. The primary focus of her writing and teaching was on Germany's eighteenth and nineteenth century classical literature.

Life

Ursula Wertheim was born in

Nowawes Babelsberg () is the largest quarter (''Stadtteil'') of Potsdam, the capital city of the German state of Brandenburg. The affluent neighbourhood named after a small hill on the Havel river is famous for Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Pal ...

, a township a short distance to the east of Potsdam in central Germany. Her student studies took her to Berlin's Humboldt University between 1948 and 1953 where her subjects were

German studies German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...

, History and Art History. The eastern part of Berlin had ended the war in the Soviet occupation zone, and she was a member of the first generation of scholars in what later became East Germany to undertake her studies through the

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

prism, which accompany her through her academic career. By 1951 she had transferred to Jena where her teachers included

Gerhard Scholz Gerhard Scholz (1 October 1903 – 31 August 1989) was a German university professor and writer. The focus of his work was on Philology, German language and culture and literary history. Life Gerhard Scholz was born early in the twentieth centu ...

. Between 1951 and 1953 she combined her studies with work as an assistant at the "Goethe and Schiller Archive" and at the "Goethe Era Museum" ''("Goethezeit-Museum")'', both in Weimar, roughly half an hour to the west of Jena. She received her doctorate in 1957 for work on

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

, focusing on his plays "Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua" and "Don Karlos, Infant von Spanien". The theme identified in the title of her dissertation was that of "Problems with the historical material in the drama of the young Schiller", which hints at an increasing overlap between Sociology and more traditionally academic fields of study such as History and Literature: this was a general trend in officially approved academic scholarship in East Germany during the 1950s and 60s. Further academic advancement came with her

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in 1963. This time her subject was the West–östlicher Divan (lyrical poetry collection) by Goethe and its interpretational relationship with translations of the work of Hafez from which Goethe had appropriated themes. In 1963/64 she set on course and briefly headed up the Theatre History department at Jena. She continued to promote study of theatre history at the university, conducting pertinent seminars on it. In 1965 she was appointed university professor for the history of modern and contemporary literature. The focus of her work continued to concern traditionally Marxist oriented study of classical German literature. By the time she retired in 1979, her approach to the literary classics through a single rather rigid Socio-political prism was seen by some to have been superseded by newer methodologies.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wertheim, Ursula Germanists Academic staff of the University of Jena 1919 births 2006 deaths Humboldt University of Berlin alumni