Karl Kraus, the great Austrian essayist, playwright, and cranky observer of mankind, is one of my favorite authors, so it is with great pleasure that I report to you, in the words of the Literary Saloon:
Karl Kraus died in 1936, and so as of this year his work is in the public domain in Austria — which also means they've now been able to open the doors to the Austrian Academy Corpus digital edition of his journal Die Fackel ('The Torch'):Unfortunately, for some inscrutable reason they require you to register, but it's free and a relatively minor imposition considering the wealth now open to you (assuming you read German). Thanks, as so often, to wood s lot for the news. Posted by languagehat at January 13, 2007 12:21 PMThe AAC digital edition of the journal Die Fackel, edited by Karl Kraus from 1899 to 1936, offers free online access to the 37 volumes, 415 issues, 922 numbers, comprising more than 22.500 pages and 6 million wordforms.The AAC-FACKEL contains a fully searchable database of the entire journal with various indexes, search tools and navigation aids in an innovative and highly functional graphic design interface, in which all pages of the original are available as digital texts and as facsimile images.
But Steve, cranks are bad people. All decent, normal humans are as one in their contempt for cranks. I'm terribly disappointed in you. This is the second crank in a row.
And you have also failed to properly support my revolutionary Dravidian-origins theory, despite the proofs I have sent you showing that it is incontestably true.
Posted by: John Emerson at January 13, 2007 07:42 PMYour superficially plausible Dravidian theory falls to pieces before the weight of my IRREFUTABLE panspermic theory, which PROVES that languages were imported to this earth from BEYOND! My multimillion-word demonstration of this will be available online as soon as I can work out the last few details.
Posted by: language hat at January 13, 2007 07:56 PMJust a note for Mac OS X users. The FACKEL site does not work with Safari - you have to use Firefox instead.
Posted by: Stephan at January 14, 2007 10:15 AMthe great Austrian essayist
Why not "the Austrian essayist"? Is there any other in this Land of Unlimited Impossibilities*?
* A (for its age) relatively widespread pun on the USA, often called in German "das Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten", the land of unlimited possibilites.
Posted by: David Marjanovi? at January 15, 2007 10:22 AMDavid, I'm working on the theory that the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy Holy Roman Empire is increasingly becoming a model for the future, as more and more things become impossible, within a generally pleasant framework.
Posted by: John Emerson at January 15, 2007 10:45 AMThe horror, the horror.
Posted by: David Marjanovi? at January 16, 2007 10:49 AMDie Fackel hat mich fasziniert, da hier eine scharfe, klare Sprache zu finden ist, die jeden, der beruflich damit zu tun hat, einfach gefallen muss. Die Suhrkamp-Baende sind da einfach klasse. Seit vor vielen Jahren mein Kollege mich darauf aufmerksam gemacht hat, muss ich immer wieder zu diesen Baenden greifen.
Das dies jetzt auch online moeglich ist, umso besser. Gratulation und Dank an die, die dies bewerkstelligt haben.
Gruesse von RAINER aus Westerland/Sylt