Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is the most prominent and influential figure in German letters. Born in Frankfurt, he published his breakout novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, in 1774 at the age of twenty-five, and the first part of his lyric masterpiece, Faust, in 1808. Goethe was a poet, novelist, literary critic, diplomat, and scientist, publishing works crossing the spectrum from tales of romantic despair to dense scientific tomes. His involvement in the literary movement Sturm und Drang was formative in the development of Romanticism, and his writings created a new paradigm in German high culture.
Zsuzsanna Ozsváth is the Leah and Paul Lewis Chair of Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and Director of the Holocaust Studies Program. Ozsváth received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and her research focuses on aesthetics and ethics in German, Hungarian, and French literature. In 1992, she received the Milan Fust Prize, Hungary’s most prestigious literary prize, with her co-translator, Frederick Turner, for Foamy Sky: The Major Poems of Miklos Radnoti (Princeton University Press, 1992).
Frederick Turner is Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Turner received his B.Litt, a PhD-level terminal degree, from Oxford University, and his research considers poetry, aesthetics, and Shakespeare. He received the prestigious Milan Fust Prize with co-translator Zsuzsanna Ozsváth for Foamy Sky: The Major Poems of Miklos Radnoti (Princeton University Press) in 1992.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) was one of the greatest lyric German-language poets. In 1902 he became a friend, and for a time the secretary, of Rodin, and it was during his 12-year Paris residence that Rilke enjoyed his greatest poetic activity. He spent the last years of his life living in seclusion in Switzerland. .
Burton Pike (1930-2022) was a translator of German and French, known particularly for his work on Robert Musil, including the translation, with Sophie Wilkins, of The Man Without Qualities (1996). He was, as well, a scholar of literature, culture, and translation, author of Robert Musil: An Introduction to His Work (1961) and The Image of the City in Modern Literature (1981).
Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955) won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. Marion Faber is Scheuer Family Professor of Humanities at Swarthmore University. Stephen Lehmann is the translator of An Invisible Country by Stephan Wackwitz, and the co-author of a recently published biography of the pianist Rudolf Serkin.
Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1930), the Austrian author and doctor, is probably best known for his plays 'La Ronde' and 'Liebelei'. His early years were marked by a particular interest in the emergent science of psychology and his writings anticipate Freud's psychopathological theories. Stephen Unwin founded the English Touring Theatre in 1993.