Kurz, Hermann

Hermann Kurz, (born Nov. 30, 1813, Reutlingen, kingdom of Württemberg [Germany]—died Oct. 10, 1873, Tübingen, Ger.), German writer chiefly known for two powerful historical novels, Schillers Heimatjahre (1843; “Schiller’s Homeland Years”) and Der Sonnenwirt (1855; “The Proprietor of the Sun Inn”), both critical of the existing social order, and for his satirically humorous tales of Swabian life in Erzählungen (1858–63; “Tales”).

Although Kurz studied at the theological seminary in Tübingen (1831–35), he gave up his position as a minister to earn his living as a writer. Failing at that, he became a librarian at the University of Tübingen. He produced translations of Ludovico Ariosto’s epic Orlando furioso (1840–41) and, from the Middle High German, of Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan und Isolde (1844), Kurz was also active between 1843 and 1854 as a political and literary journalist and as editor of the democratic newspaper Der Beobachter in Stuttgart.