Gustav Freytag

Place: Kreuzburg

Born: 1816

Death: 1895

Biography:

Gustav Freytag was a German writer of realistic novels celebrating the merits of the middle classes. He was born on July 13, 1816, in Kreuzburg, Haute-Silésie, royaume de Prusse (now Kluczbork, Poland) and died on April 30, 1895, in Wiesbaden, Germany. He studied philology at the University of Breslau and the University of Berlin, and became a member of the Corps Borussia Breslau (de) in 1835. In 1847, he settled in Berlin and became the editor of Die Grenzboten, an influential liberal weekly. He edited the journal until 1861, and again from 1867 to 1870. He also briefly edited a new weekly, Die Nation, in 1852. Freytag was a member of the Prussian National Assembly in 1848, and was a deputy in the Reichstag of the North German Confederation from 1867 to 1870. He was awarded the Order of Maximilian for Science and Art by the King of Bavaria in 1860, and the Order Pour le Mérite for Science and Art by the German Emperor in 1889. Freytag's most famous works include 'Das Bild des Kaisers' (1859), 'Die verlorene Handschrift' (1864), and 'Die Technik des Dramas' (1863).