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Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler (24 April 1845 – 29 December 1924) was a Swiss poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1919 "in special appreciation of his epic poetry Olympian Spring". His work includes both pessimism and poems.
Later he worked in Russia as tutor, starting from August 1871, remaining there (with some periods in Finland) until 1879. Later he was elementary teacher in Bern and La Neuveville, as well as journalist for the Der Kunstwart and as editor for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In 1883 Spitteler married Marie op der Hoff, previously his pupil in Neuveville.
Under the pseudonym Carl Felix Tandem, Spitteler published the allegoric prose poem Prometheus and Epimetheus in 1881, contrasting between ideals and dogmas through the mythological figures of Prometheus and Epimetheus. This 1881 edition received an extended psychological exegesis by Carl Gustav Jung in his 1921 book Psychological Types. Spitteler later reworked the poem as Prometheus der Dulder ( Prometheus the Sufferer), published in 1924 under his true name.
In 1882 he published his Extramundana, a collection of poems. He gave up teaching in 1885 and devoted himself to a journalistic career in Basel. Now his works began to come in rapid succession. In 1891 there appeared Friedli, der Kalderi, a collection of short stories, in which Spitteler, as he himself says, depicted Russian realism. Literarische Gleichnisse appeared in 1892, and Balladen in 1896.
In 1900–1905 Spitteler wrote the powerful allegoric-epic poem, in , Olympischer Frühling ( Olympic Spring). This work, mixing fantastic, naturalistic, religions and mythological themes, deals with human concern towards the universe. His prose works include Die Mädchenfeinde ( Two Little Misogynists, 1907), about his autobiographical childhood experiences, the dramatic Conrad der Leutnant (1898), in which he show influence from the previously opposed Naturalism, and the autobiographical novella Imago (1906), examining the role of the unconscious mind in the conflict between a creative mind and the middle-class restrictions with internal monologue.
During World War I he opposed the pro-German attitude of the Swiss German-speaking majority, a position put forward in the essay "Unser Schweizer Standpunkt". In 1919 he won the Nobel Prize. Spitteler died at Lucerne in 1924.
Carl Spitteler's estate is archived in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern, in the Zürich Central Library and in the Dichter- und Stadtmuseum in Liestal.
In popular culture
Carl Jung claimed his idea of the archetype of the Anima was based upon what Spitteler described as 'My Lady Soul'. In 2015 artist and writer Tanja Stark first connected Spitteler (and Jung's) concept with musician David Bowie, who famously described himself as Jungian, in his 1973 song "Lady Grinning Soul". Stark, T., “Crashing Out with Sylvian: David Bowie, Carl Jung and the Unconscious” in Deveroux, E., M.Power and A. Dillane (eds) David Bowie: Critical Perspectives: Routledge Press Contemporary Music Series. 2015 (chapter 5)
Works
All the works except the novel are untranslated and unavailable in English as of 2025.
Poetry
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Prometheus
Novel
Non-fiction
Essays
Autobiography
External links
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