Jean Paul was a German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories.
13 Facts About Jean Paul
2.
Jean Paul was born at Wunsiedel, in the Fichtelgebirge mountains.
3.
In September 1821 Jean Paul lost his only son, Max, a youth of the highest promise; and he never quite recovered from this shock.
4.
Jean Paul lost his sight in 1824, and died of dropsy at Bayreuth, on 14 November 1825.
5.
Jean Paul occupies an unusual position in German literature and has always divided the literary public.
6.
Jean Paul took the Romantic formlessness of the novel to extremes: Schlegel called his novels soliloquies, in which he makes his readers take part.
7.
Jean Paul habitually played with a multitude of droll and bizarre ideas: his work is characterized by wild metaphors as well as by digressive and partly labyrinthine plots.
8.
Jean Paul had what had become rare amidst classical severity and romantic irony: humour.
9.
Jean Paul was one of the first who approached humour from a theoretical standpoint.
10.
Jean Paul thought that both the Enlightenment and metaphysics had failed, though they still held importance for his worldview.
11.
Jean Paul arrived at a philosophy without illusions, and a state of humorous resignation.
12.
Jean Paul was a lifelong defender of freedom of the press and his campaigns against censorship went beyond many of his contemporaries.
13.
In published lectures, Steiner often mentioned the realization by the 7-year-old Jean Paul that he was an individual "Ego", expressed in Paul's surprise at understanding that "I am an I".