Emil Staiger

Emil Staiger (8 February 1908 – 28 April 1987) was a Swiss historian, writer, Germanist and Professor of German Studies at the University of Zurich.

[2] Staiger's importance in the field of German literature was founded in his widely acclaimed publications Die Zeit als Einbildkraft des Dichters (1939), Basic Concepts of Poetics (1946), The Art of Interpretation (1955) and in his three-volume Goethe Studies (1952–1959).

Staiger's style of literary criticism was opposed to extra-literary concepts such as positivism and intellectual history, sociology or psychoanalysis.

This sensitive interpretation method, often described with the saying “understand what grabs us”, developed into a distinct Germanic style of studying literature.

[4] Staiger's 11 o'clock lectures, which inspired students from all over Europe as well as the literary public to attend, were spoken about far beyond the University of Zurich.