Leo Spitzer

Spitzer, Leo 

Born Feb. 7, 1887, in Vienna; died Sept. 16, 1960, in Forte dei Marmi, Italy. Austrian philologist.

Spitzer studied at the universities of Vienna, Paris, Rome, and Leipzig. He became a professor at the universities of Bonn in 1922, Marburg in 1925, and Cologne in 1930. In 1933 he emigrated from fascist Germany and took up a post at the University of Istanbul, and from 1936 to 1956 was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Spitzer was influenced by the aesthetic idealism of K. Fossler. His principal works dealt with the literary stylistics of Romance languages, particularly French and Spanish; he also did research in various areas of Romance linguistics. Spitzer was the editor of Hugo Schuchardt: Breviary (1922).

WORKS

Aufsätze zur romanischen Syntax und Stilistik. Halle, 1918.
Stilstudien, vols. 1–2. Munich, 1928.
Linguistics and Literary History. Princeton, N.J., 1948.
Essays in Historical Semantics. New York, 1948.
In Russian translation:
“Slovesnoe iskusstvo i nauka o iazyke.” In the collection Problemy literaturnoiformy. Leningrad, 1928.

REFERENCES

Vinokur, G. O. “Epizod ideinoi bor’by v zapadnoi lingvistike.” Voprosy iazykoznaniia, 1957, no. 2.
Wellek, R. “Leo Spitzer (1887–1960).” Comparative Literature, vol. 12, 1960. (Contains bibliography.)