ABSTRACT
Son of a doctor, Hans Carossa studied medicine in Munich and Leipzig, then settled as a medical practitioner in Bavaria. He served in the medical corps during the First World War, and his Rumänisches Tagebuch (1924, republished in 1935 as Tagebuch im Krieg) was a volume of reminiscences, showing the author to be a man of humane values. Eine Kindheit (1922) is a popular autobiographical account of the first ten years in the life of a Bavarian doctor’s son; Goethean wisdom is imparted and the need for transformation and acceptance is frequently stressed, the author’s goal being ‘anderen ein Licht auf ihre Bahn zu werfen, indem ich die meinige aufzeigte’. Verwandlungen einer Jugend (1928) is a (less successful) sequel. Der Arzt Gion (‘Gion’ is the RhaetoRomansch for ‘Hans’) (1932) tells of the calling and profession of a young doctor after the First World War. The novel Geheimnisse des reifen Lebens (1936) uses the diary form to explore human relationships. During the Second World War Carossa withdrew into ‘inner emigration’, attempting to keep alive the memory of the finer elements in the German cultural tradition; he was, however, nominated by Goebbels in 1941 as President of the Europäische Schriftstellervereinigung. After the war Carossa attempted to explain his situation at that time in Ungleiche Welten (1951). Further autobiographical details of his life appeared in Aufzeichnungen aus Italien (1947); a scattering of short stories appeared in the 1950s. His poetry is unassuming and traditional: the famous Abendländische Elegie (‘Wird Abend über uns, o Abendland?’) laments in restrained and dignified language the collapse of civilized values in Germany and elsewhere, yet hopes for a better future. In his work Carossa eschews modernist experimentation; he appealed to the educated middle-class German reader with his cultivation of humanistic values derived from Goethe. Sämtliche Werke (two vols) appeared in 1962; Werke (five vols) in 1978; Ausgewählte Gedichte also in 1978.
