Everything about Otto Maria Carpeaux totally explained
Otto Maria Carpeaux (
March 9,
1900 -
February 3,
1978), born
Otto Karpfen, was an Austro-Brazilian
literary critic and multilingual scholar.
Carpeaux was born in 1900 in
Vienna,
Austria, to a
Jewish family, and stayed there until 1939. In the
University of Vienna he studied exact sciences and received his PhD in
Chemistry with a work concerning the
brain, and possibly also a degree in
Physics. Later he studied
Sociology and
Philosophy in
Paris,
Comparative literature in
Naples,
Politics in
Berlin and, supposedly,
Mathematics in
Leipzig.
At some point in his life, Karpfen converted to
Christianity, adding the
Maria to his name and using
Fidelis as his surname for some time. This conversion was evident in his political books (such as
Wege Nach Rom) and his thinking, and led to his participation in the
right-wing government of
Engelbert Dollfuss.
When the
Anschluss occurred and the
Nazis took over Vienna, Karpfen went to
Belgium. He stayed there for about a year and then went to
Brazil, where he changed his last name to Carpeaux. At first, he was given a simple rural job, but eventually, through newspapers, he became an established literary critic, introducing writers such as
Kafka and
Musil to Brazilian audiences, along with the literary criticism of
Dilthey,
Croce,
Benjamin and others.
Perhaps the peak of Carpeaux's production was his eight-volume
History of Western Literature, unfortunately available only in
Portuguese. Late critic
José Lino Grünewald labelled it one of the brightest moments of the language in prose, despite the fact that Carpeaux wasn't a native speaker. It was written over a period of two years with a limited amount of research; the author depended primarily on his memory. It is also unique in that it focuses on creating links between all periods, in order to create an organic vision of the
literary history he's telling. The book also include more than 8,000 brief criticisms and expositions of the majority of the figures discussed along the way, minus the ones cited in passing; all are dealt with in their original languages, both in expositions and quotations and in the bibliography offered. The total bibliographical amount of cited works is on the merge of 30,000 books or more. Considering it reflected only a portion of his intellectual interests, this puts the author in the forefront of the most learned men of his time.
After a transition to the Brazilian left, marked by his fight against the military dictatorship that came to power in 1964, Carpeaux abandoned his literary writings by 1968, although he participated in an encyclopedia called
Mirador. He died of a heart attack in 1978.
Recently, his essays have been compiled by Brazilian philosopher
Olavo de Carvalho, with an added introduction. Critic
Mauro Souza Ventura released
De Karpfen a Carpeaux, a study in the life and work of Carpeaux. Carpeaux's other works include a dense history of German Literature, several books of literary criticism, a popular History of Western Music and various political writings.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Otto Maria Carpeaux'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://otto_maria_carpeaux.totallyexplained.com">Otto Maria Carpeaux Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
