JULIUS WALDEMAR

See also:

• JULIUS WALDEMAR GROSSE (1828—1902)

GROSSE (1828—1902)  , German poet, the son of a military chaplain, was born at Erfurt on the 25th of April 1828 . He received his early education at the gymnasium in Magdeburg, and on leaving school and showing disinclination for the ministry, entered an architect's office . But his mind was bent upon literature, and in 1849 he entered the university of Halle, where, although inscribed as a student of law, he devoted himself almost exclusively to letters . His first poetical essay was with the tragedy Cola di Rienzi (1851), followed in the same year by a comedy, Eine Nachtpartie Shakespeares, which was at once produced on the stage . The success of these first two pieces encouraged him to follow literature as a profession, and proceeding in 1852 to Munich, he joined the circle of young poets of whom Paul Hey-se (q.v.) and Hermann Lingg (182o—1905) were the chief . For six years (1855—1861) he was dramatic critic of the Neue Miinchener Zeitung, and was then for a while on the staff of the Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung, but in 1862 he returned to Munich as editor of the Bayrische Zeitung, a post he retained until the paper ceased to exist in 1867 . In 1869 Grosse was appointed secretary of the Schiller-Stiftung, and lived for the next few years alternately in Weimar, Dresden and Munich, until, in 189o, he took up his permanent residence in Weimar . He was made grand-ducal Hofrat and had the title of "professor." He died at Torbole on the Lago di Garda on the 9th of May 1902 . Grosse was a most prolific writer of novels, dramas and poems . As a lyric poet, especially in Gedichte (1857) and Aus bewegten Tagen, a volume of poems (1869), he showed himself more to advantage than in his novels, of which latter, however, Untreu aus Mitleid (2 vols., 1868); Vox populi, vox dei (1869); Maria Mancini (1871); Neue Erzahlungen (1875); Sophie Monnier (1876), and Ein Frauenlos (1888) are remarkable for a certain elegance of style . His tragedies, Die Ynglinger (1858); Tiberius (18-,6); Johann von Schwaben; and the comedy Die steinerne Braut, had considerable success on the stage . Grosse's Gesammelte dramatische Werke appeared in 7 vols. in Leipzig (187o), while his Erzahlende Dichtungen were published at Berlin (6 vols., 1871-1873) .

An edition of his selected

works by A . Bartels is in preparation . See also his autobiography, Literarische Ursachen and Wirkungen (1896); R . Prutz, Die Literatur der Gegenwart (1859) ; J . Ethe, J . Grosse als epischer Dichter (1872) .