Josef Lauff
Josef Lauff (16 November 1855 – 1933) was a German poet and dramatist.
He was born at Cologne, the son of a jurist. He was educated at Münster in Westphalia, and entering the army served as a lieutenant of artillery at Thorn and subsequently at Cologne, where he attained the rank of captain in 1890. In 1898 he was summoned by the German emperor, William II, to Wiesbaden, being at the same time promoted to major's rank, in order that he might devote his great dramatic talents to the royal theatre.
His literary career began with the epic poems Jan van Calker, ein Malerlied vom Niederrhein (1887, 3rd ed., 1892) and Der Helfensteiner, ein Sang aus dem Bauernkriege (3rd ed., 1896). These were followed by Die Overstolzin (5th ed., 1900), Herodias (2nd ed., 1898) and Die Geißlerin (4th ed., 1902). He also wrote the novels Die Hexe (6th ed., 1900), Regina coeli (a story of the fall of the Dutch Republic) (7th ed., 1904), Die Hauptmannsfrau (8th ed., 1903) and Marie Verwahnen (1903).
But he is best known as a dramatist. Beginning with the tragedy Inez de Castro (1894), he proceeded to dramatize the great monarchs of his country, and, in a Hohenzollern tetralogy, issued Der Burggraf (1897, 6th ed. 1900) and Der Eisenzahn (1900), to be followed by Der grosse Kurfurst (The Great Elector) and Friedrich der Große (Frederick the Great).
See A. Schroeter, Josef Lauff, Em litterarisches Zeitbild (1899), and B. Sturm, Josef Lauff (1903).
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lauff, Josef". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 280–281. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
- Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- Articles with FAST identifiers
- Articles with ISNI identifiers
- Articles with VIAF identifiers
- Articles with BNF identifiers
- Articles with BNFdata identifiers
- Articles with GND identifiers
- Articles with J9U identifiers
- Articles with LCCN identifiers
- Articles with NKC identifiers
- Articles with NLG identifiers
- Articles with NTA identifiers
- Articles with PLWABN identifiers
- Articles with DTBIO identifiers
- Articles with RISM identifiers
- Articles with SUDOC identifiers
- 1855 births
- 1933 deaths
- German poets
- Writers from the Rhine Province
- Writers from Cologne
- German male poets
- German male dramatists and playwrights
- 19th-century German dramatists and playwrights
- 19th-century German male writers
- 19th-century German writers
- 20th-century German dramatists and playwrights