The New International Encyclopædia/Gutzkow, Karl  From
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(1811-78). A distinguished German novelist and dramatist, born
in Berlin. He studied theology and philosophy in Berlin and
early contributed to literary journals. He subsequently studied
law and political sciences at Heidelberg and Munich, but devoted
himself exclusively to literature. His early fiction is
satirically skeptical, as is implied in the title of his first
significant novel, Wally, die Zweiflerin (1835), for which he
was imprisoned and all his writings forbidden, with the usual
result of making them and him widely popular. This work is
usually taken as the starting-point of the school known as Young
Germany, literary reformers heralding the democratic upheaval of
1848. After his release from prison Gutzkow went to Hamburg, and
wrote four powerful dramas: Richard Savage (1839); Zopf und
Schwert (1844); Das Urbild des Tartüffe (l847); Uriel Acosta
(1848), and others of less merit. I