SPITTELER, CARL ( ,1_45-1924), Swiss poet and novelist, was born at Liestal, near Basle, April 24, 1845, and died at Lucerne Dec. 28, 1924. In youth he studied theology, but did not pursue a clerical career. After many years of teaching (eight of them in Russia), he published his first important work, Prometheus and Epimetheus, in 1880-81, under the pseudonym of "Felix Tandem." This was an epic, written in a rhythmical, quasi-biblical, hieratic prose. A little later appeared Extramun dana (1883), a volume of apologues in verse. From 1885 to 1892 he engaged in journalism, but published Schmetterlinge (1889), a series of short poems. After 1892, when he settled in Lucerne, he was able to devote himself wholly to literature. Three other volumes of short poems were produced between 1892 and 1906— Literarische Gleichnisse, Balladen and Glockenlieder. In 1900 05 appeared his long epic, Olympischer Friihling, which was cited as the main ground for the award of the Nobel Prize for litera ture in 1919. His prose writings include Imago (1906) and three
other romances; Lachende Wahrheiten, a volume of essays (1898; Eng. trans. 1927) ; Die Mddchenfeinde (1907; Eng. trans., 1922), a story founded on a reminiscence of his boyhood; and Meine friihesten Erlebnisse (1914), a charming account of his childhood. His last work, published in 1924, shortly before his death, was Prometheus der Dulder, a metrical, compacter and maturer treatment of the theme of Prometheus and Epimetheus.
BIBLIoGRAniv.—See short lives and studies by Felix Weingartner (1904), Carl Meissner (1912), 0. Kluth (1918 ; in French), and Rudolf Gottschalk (1928). The most complete English notices of him are in Studies of Ten Literatures by Ernest Boyd (1923) and in an article by Prof. J. G. Robertson in the Contemporary Review (Jan. 1921). See also the introductions to the translations of Lachende Wahrheiten (Laughing Truths; 1927) and Selected Poems (1928). (J. F. M.)