Hans Henny Jahnn

Hans Henny Jahnn (17 December 1894, Stellingen – 29 November 1959, Hamburg) was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder.

As a playwright, he wrote: Pastor Ephraim Magnus (1917), which The Cambridge Guide to Theatre describes as a nihilistic, Expressionist play "stuffed with perversities and sado-masochistic motifs"; Coronation of Richard III (1922; "equally lurid");[1] and a version of Medea (1926). Later works include the novel Perrudja, an unfinished trilogy of novels River without Banks (Fluss ohne Ufer), the drama Thomas Chatterton (1955; staged by Gustaf Gründgens in 1956),[1] and the novella The Night of Lead. Erwin Piscator staged Jahnn's The Dusty Rainbow (Der staubige Regenbogen) in 1961.[1]

Jahnn was also a music publisher, focusing on 17th-century organ music. He was a contemporary of organ-builder Rudolf von Beckerath.

Personal life

Hans Henny Jahn was born in 1894 in Stellingen, one of Hamburg's suburbs, and was the son of a shipwright.[2]

Jahn met Gottlieb Friedrich Harms "Friedel" (1893-1931), with whom he was united in a "mystical wedding" in 1913, at a secondary school (the St. Pauli Realschule) which they both attended, and they fled from Germany to Norway to avoid enlistment into the army for World War I, where they lived together between 1914 and 1918, and after the war ended they returned to Hamburg.[3][2] They met Ellinor Philips in 1918. In 1919, Jahnn founded the community of Ugrino with a sculptor, Franz Buse.[4] In 1926, Jahnn married Ellinor, and Harms married Sybille Philips, Ellinor's sister, in 1928. When Harms died in 1931 Jahn designed his gravestone.[2] Once the Nazi period began, he fled Germany once again to Zurich and then Bornholm to escape the hostility of the Nazis towards the gay community.[2]

Jahnn's bisexuality, well-documented in his life, appears as well throughout his literary work, although it did not receive much recognition for some time due to his eccentric lifestyle, unconventional opinions, and homosexual relationship.[2] Hans Henny Jahnn is buried alongside Harms and Ellinor at Nienstedten Cemetery, Hamburg, Germany.[5]

English Translations
  • The Living Are Few, the Dead Many. Trans. Malcolm R. Green. (2012)[6]

References
  1. Banham (1998, 553).
  2. Who's who in gay and lesbian history : from antiquity to World War II. Aldrich, Robert, 1954-, Wotherspoon, Garry. London: Routledge. 2002. ISBN 0415159822. OCLC 50479290.CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. Jan Bürger, 2003. Der gestrandete Wal. Das maßlose Leben des Hans Henny Jahnn. Die Jahre 1894–1935. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag. ISBN 3-351-02552-1.
  4. Jochen Hengst und Heinrich Lewinski, 1991. Hanns Henny Jahnn: Ugrino. Hannover: Revonnah Verlag. ISBN 3-927715-08-5
  5. Molitor, Dietrich; Popp, Wolfgang (1986), Siegener Hans Henny Jahnn Kolloquium: Homosexualität und Literatur, Blaue Eule, ISBN 3-89206-142-4
  6. West, Adrian Nathan (May 29, 2018). "Stranded Whale". The Times Literary Supplement.

Sources
  • Banham, Martin, ed. (1998). "Jahnn, Hans Henny". The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 553. ISBN 0-521-43437-8.
  • "Jahnn, Hans Henny". The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Infoplease. 1994. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
  • Freeman, Thomas P. (1986). Hans Henny Jahnn. Eine Biographie. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe. ISBN 3-455-08608-X.
  • Freeman, Thomas P. (2001). The Case of Hans Henny Jahnn: Criticism and the Literary Outsider. Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 1-57113-206-6.
  • Jenkinson, David Edward (1969). A Critical Analysis of the Novels of Hans Henny Jahnn (Ph.D.). Department of English, King's College, University of London. OCLC 874233633.
  • Jenkinson, David Edward (July 1972). "The Role of Vitalism in the Novels of Hans Henny Jahnn". German Life and Letters. 25 (4): 359–368. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0483.1972.tb00795.x.
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