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Robert Eduard Prutz

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ROBERT EDUARD PRUTZ (1816-1872), German poet and prose writer, was born at Stettin on the 30th of May 1816. He studied philology, philosophy and history at Berlin, Breslau and Halle, and in the last-named became associated, after taking his degree, with Arnold Ruge in the publication of the Hallesche Jahrbacher. Subjected on account of his advanced political views to police surveillance, he removed to Jena, where, on the strength of an excellent monograph, Der Gottinger Dichterbund (1841), he hoped to obtain an academic appointment. He was, however, expelled from the town for offending against the press laws, and it was not until 1846 that he received permission to lecture in Berlin. From 1849 to 1859 he was extraordinary professor of literature at Halle, but retired in 1859 to Stettin, where he died on the 21st of June 187 2.

Prutz belonged to the group of political poets who dominated German literature between 1841 and 1848; his poems are more conspicuous for their liberal tendency than their poetry. Among them may be mentioned Ein Mdrehen (1841); Gedichte (1841); Aus der Heimat (1858); Neue Gedichte (1860); Herbstrosen (186); Buck der Liebe (1869). Among his novels are noteworthy, Das Engelchen (1851) and Der Musikantenturm (18s5). Much more important are his contributions to literary history and criticism: Vorlesungen fiber die Geschichte des deutschen Theaters (1847); Ludwig Holberg (1857); Die deutsche Literatur der Gegenwart (18J9), and Menschen and Bucher (1862). Prutz also wrote some dramas of little merit.

See R. von Gottschall, in Unsere Zeit (1872).