Paul Ernst

PAUL ERNST (1866-1933) was born Karl Friedrich Paul Ernst in Elbingerode, Germany. He then studied theology and philosophy at the universities of Göttingen and Tübingen, then literature and history in Berlin. He wrote numerous novels, stories and novellas as well as dramas, essays and epics, and in 1905/1906 he worked as a dramaturge at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus. His early works fall under the genre of Naturalism, whereas his works from 1920 on are considered Neoclassicism. In 1933 he received the Goethe Medal for Art and Science, and returned to Germany from Austria, where he had been living since 1925, but was shocked by the new nationalistic regime that had begun to sing his praises. Sad and disoriented, he left Germany again and died a few months later at his isolated castle in St. Georgen, Austria. In a sonnet composed in final days, he lamented: "The world is such, that I cannot live."