Gutzkow, Karl Ferdinand

Related Category: German Literature: Biographies

(kärl fĕr´dēnänt gts´kō), 1811–78, German writer. He entered journalism in 1831 and became a leader of the antiromantic and nationally conscious literary movement known as Young Germany. For his Wally die Zweiflerin [Wally the doubter] (1835), an attack on marriage and religious orthodoxy, he was briefly jailed. Gutzkow's controversial writings furthered German social and political liberalism, and his novel Die Ritter vom Geiste [knights of the spirit] (9 vol., 1850–52) is important in the development of the modern German social novel. Among his plays is Uriel Acosta (1847, tr. 1860), which, although derivative, is perhaps his best work.