Saar, Ferdinand von

Saar, Ferdinand von

(fĕr`dēnänt fən zär), 1833–1906, Austrian writer. His best works are his short stories, among them the two collections (1876, 1897) of Novellen aus Österreich [tales from Austria]. Saar was of the decadent school, and the people he portrayed were generally weak failures. Some of his later writings place him with the more sympathetic naturalists.

Saar, Ferdinand Von

 

Born Sept. 30, 1833, in Vienna; died there July 24, 1906. Austrian writer.

Saar began his literary career in 1859. He is the author of the tragedy Emperor Henry IV (1863–67) and of the popular drama The Good Deed (1885). His lyrical collections Poems (1882) and Viennese Elegies (1893) are marked by the influence of N. Lenau. Saar’s idyllic poem Hermann and Dorothea (1902) was influenced by Goethe. Saar’s best works are the novellas in the collections Austrian Novellas (1876; two additional editions, volumes 1–2, 1897), Camera Obscura (1901; two additional editions, 1904), and Tragedy of Life (1906). Saar learned the art of the realistic psychological short story from I. S. Turgenev.

WORKS

Samtliche Werke, vols. 1–12. Leipzig [1909].
In Russian translation:
In the collection Avstriiskaia novella XIX v. Moscow, 1959. Pages 231–34.

REFERENCES

Leicht, H. F. von Saar als Novellist. Munich, 1923.
Lukas, M. F. von Saar: Leben und Werk. Vienna, 1947.
Gassner, I. Das Bild Österreichs bei F. von Saar. Innsbruck, 1948.
Kretzschmar, H. F. von Saar. Cologne, 1965. (Bibliography.)

N. B. VESELOVSKAIA