Eduard von Keyserling

Johann Heinrich Eduard Nicolaus Graf von Keyserling (May 14, 1855 – September 28, 1918) was a Baltic German fiction writer and dramatist, an exponent of literary impressionism and associated with the historic region of Courland. Biography Keyserling was born at Schloss Tels-Paddern (now in Kalvene parish, South Kurzeme Municipality, Latvia), Courland Governorate, then part of the Russian Empire. He belonged to the Baltic German family of Keyserlingk and was a nephew of the geologist Alexander Keyserling. He died in Munich, Bavaria. Keyserling's early novels Fräulein Rosa Herz. Eine Kleinstadtliebe (1887) and Die dritte Stiege (1892) were influenced by Naturalism. The later novels are more finely nuanced and less interested in assembling details. He is always interested in the interplay of light and natural objects. His novels and novellas are usually set in the German Baltic provinces, both in the noble houses and gardens and also in the fir forests and the outdoors generally. Most of his novels are suffused with a certain melancholy. They are peopled by minor aristocrats. Sometimes there are contrasting figures from a less exalted class; often this is a "child of nature," a person uncorrupted by civilization. Frequently there is a clash of generations. His novellas and novels, after 1902, place Keyserling at the forefront of German literary Impressionism. His essays on general and cultural questions, like his theater plays, are forgotten.