Keller, GOTTFRIED

Keller, GOTTFRIED, German poet and novelist, was born at Glattfelden, near Zurich, on 19th July 1819. He studied at first landscape-painting at Vienna (1840-42), but shortly afterwards abandoned painting for literature. From 1861 to 1876 he was state secretary of his native canton. The works on which Keller's fame rests are the romance, Der grüne Heinrich (1854; new and revised ed. 1879-80); Die Leute von Seldwyla (1856), a collection of short tales, of which some, as Romeo und Juliet auf dem Dorf, Kleider machen Leute, and Der Schmied seines Glückes, are excellently told; the humorous Sieben Legenden (1872); Züricher Novellen (1878); a volume of Gesammelte Gedichte (1883); and the romance Martin Salander (1886). Keller has a warm and fertile imagination, a rich humour, and true poetic feeling; he excels in the delineation of Swiss character. A collected edition of his works appeared in 1889-90. He died 15th July 1890. See Life by Brahm (1883).