Karl Gutzkow

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Karl Gutzkow

German writer

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Dec 12, 2024 • Article History

Quick Facts

Born:: March 17, 1811, Berlin, Prussia [Germany]

Died:: Dec. 16, 1878, Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt am Main (aged 67)

Notable Works:: “Blasedow und seine Söhne”; “Das Urbild des Tartüffe”; “Der Zauberer vom Rom”; “Die Ritter vom Geiste”; “Maha Guru, Geschichte eines Gottes”; “Richard Savage”; “Uriel Acosta”; “Werner oder Herz und Welt”

Movement / Style:: Young Germany

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Karl Gutzkow (born March 17, 1811, Berlin, Prussia [Germany]—died Dec. 16, 1878, Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt am Main) was a novelist and dramatist who was a pioneer of the modern social novel in Germany. Gutzkow began his career as a journalist and first attracted attention with the publication of Maha Guru, Geschichte eines Gottes (1833; “Maha Guru, Story of a God”), a fantastic satirical romance. In 1835 he published Wally, die Zweiflerin (“Wally, the Doubter”), an attack on marriage, coloured by religious skepticism, that marked the beginning of the revolt of the Young Germany (q.v.) movement against Romanticism. The book excited virulent ...(100 of 301 words)

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