This short article is a follow-up to our last posting, “The Birth & Death of German Playwrights”. Plotting the birth and death places of our 178 authors onto a map was bringing us closer to understanding the character of our corpus which – codenamed “Sydney” – contains 465 German-language plays. But it didn’t bring us close enough to understanding who the authors are. So let’s build a gallery with their portraits, a facebook of German playwrights, so to speak, and let’s do that automatically.
We’re relying on Wikidata again and, for each author, extract a link to their principal image which leads to the actual portrait file on Wikimedia Commons. We do this with nothing more than an XSLT transformation. Some simple BASH scripting was added to build the actual gallery for this post. The male and female silhouettes for authors who still lack an image on Commons were designed by our accomplice Ruth Reiche (thanks!). For some more details on how we did all this scroll down to the end of the gallery. And now without further ado, this is the gallery (click on an image to get to the source file on Commons):
Neuber, Friederike Caroline
(1697–1760)Bodmer, Johann Jacob
(1698–1783)
Gottsched, Johann Christoph
(1700–1766)Borkenstein, Hinrich
(1705–1777)
Gottsched, Luise Adelgunde Victorie
(1713–1762)
Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott
(1715–1769)
Kurz, Joseph von
(1717–1784)Schlegel, Johann Elias
(1719–1749)
Auenbrugger, Johann Leopold von
(1722–1809)
Mylius, Christlob
(1722–1754)Quistorp, Theodor Johann
(1722–1776)Krüger, Johann Christian
(1723–1750)
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb
(1724–1803)
Weiße, Christian Felix
(1726–1804)
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
(1729–1781)
Gessner, Salomon
(1730–1788)
Cronegk, Johann Friedrich von
(1731–1758)Hafner, Philipp
(1731–1764)Pfeil, Johann Gottlob Benjamin
(1732–1800)
Ayrenhoff, Cornelius Hermann von
(1733–1819)
Wieland, Christoph Martin
(1733–1813)
Brandes, Johann Christian
(1735–1799)Klemm, Christian Gottlob
(1736–1802)
Sturz, Helfrich Peter
(1736–1779)
Gerstenberg, Heinrich Wilhelm von
(1737–1823)Brawe, Joachim Wilhelm von
(1738–1758)
Engel, Johann Jakob
(1741–1802)
Hippel, Theodor Gottlieb von
(1741–1796)
Stephanie, Johann Gottlieb (d. J.)
(1741–1800)
Schröder, Friedrich Ludwig
(1744–1816)Weidmann, Paul
(1744–1801)
Gotter, Friedrich Wilhelm
(1746–1797)Wagner, Heinrich Leopold
(1747–1779)Bretzner, Christoph Friedrich
(1748–1807)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
(1749–1832)
Müller, Friedrich (Maler Müller)
(1749–1825)
Lenz, Jakob Michael Reinhold
(1751–1792)
Schikaneder, Johann Emanuel
(1751–1812)
Klinger, Friedrich Maximilian
(1752–1831)
Leisewitz, Johann Anton
(1752–1806)
Törring, Josef August von
(1753–1826)Soden, Julius von
(1754–1831)Gemmingen-Hornberg, Otto Heinrich von
(1755–1836)Schink, Johann Friedrich
(1755–1835)
Iffland, August Wilhelm
(1759–1814)Hensler, Karl Friedrich
(1759–1825)
Schiller, Friedrich
(1759–1805)
Kotzebue, August von
(1761–1819)Benkowitz, Karl Friedrich
(1764–1807)
Sonnleithner, Joseph Ferdinand von
(1766–1835)
Schlegel, August Wilhelm
(1767–1845)
Kind, Johann Friedrich
(1768–1843)
Voß, Julius von
(1768–1832)
Werner, Zacharias
(1768–1823)
Zschokke, Heinrich
(1771–1848)Gleich, Joseph Alois
(1772–1841)
Schlegel, Friedrich
(1772–1829)
Tieck, Ludwig
(1773–1853)
Weißenthurn, Johanna von
(1773–1847)Breuning, Stephan von
(1774–1827)
Müllner, Adolph
(1774–1829)Meisl, Karl
(1775–1853)
Treitschke, Georg Friedrich
(1776–1842)
Kleist, Heinrich von
(1777–1811)
Klingemann, Ernst August Friedrich
(1777–1831)
Fouqué, Friedrich de la Motte
(1777–1843)
Brentano, Clemens
(1778–1842)Bernard, Josef Karl
(1780–1850)
Günderode, Karoline von
(1780–1806)
Arnim, Ludwig Achim von
(1781–1831)
Chézy, Helmina von
(1783–1856)
Raupach, Ernst
(1784–1852)
Bäuerle, Adolf
(1786–1859)
Uhland, Ludwig
(1787–1862)
Eichendorff, Joseph von
(1788–1857)
Raimund, Ferdinand
(1790–1836)
Grillparzer, Franz
(1791–1872)
Körner, Theodor
(1791–1813)Kupelwieser, Josef
(1791–1866)
Malß, Karl
(1792–1848)Gehe, Eduard Heinrich
(1795–1830)Wohlbrück, Wilhelm August
(1795–1848)
Immermann, Karl
(1796–1840)
Platen, August von
(1796–1835)
Schober, Franz von
(1796–1882)
Droste-Hülshoff, Annette von
(1797–1848)
Heine, Heinrich
(1797–1856)
Holtei, Karl von
(1798–1880)
Beer, Michael
(1800–1833)
Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte
(1800–1868)
Devrient, Philipp Eduard
(1801–1877)
Grabbe, Christian Dietrich
(1801–1836)
Lortzing, Albert (Gustav)
(1801–1851)
Nestroy, Johann
(1801–1862)
Bauernfeld, Eduard von
(1802–1890)
Braun von Braunthal, Karl Johann
(1802–1866)
Simrock, Karl
(1802–1876)
Kobell, Franz von
(1803–1882)
Haffner, Carl
(1804–1876)Riese, Friedrich Wilhelm
(1805–1879)
Halm, Friedrich
(1806–1871)
Laube, Heinrich
(1806–1884)
Vischer, Friedrich Theodor
(1807–1887)
Schumann, Robert
(1810–1856)
Benedix, Julius Roderich
(1811–1873)
Gutzkow, Karl
(1811–1878)
Büchner, Georg
(1813–1837)
Hebbel, Friedrich
(1813–1863)
Ludwig, Otto
(1813–1865)
Wagner, Richard
(1813–1883)
Kaiser, Friedrich
(1814–1874)Niebergall, Ernst Elias
(1815–1843)
Freytag, Gustav
(1816–1895)
Prutz, Robert Eduard
(1816–1872)
Dulk, Albert
(1819–1884)Roeber, Friedrich
(1819–1901)
Kalisch, David
(1820–1872)
Mosenthal, Salomon Hermann von
(1821–1877)
Genée, Richard
(1823–1895)
Cornelius, Peter
(1824–1874)
Lassalle, Ferdinand
(1825–1864)
Moser, Gustav von
(1825–1903)
Heyse, Paul
(1830–1914)Berg, O. F.
(1833–1886)Schaefer, Wilhelm
(1835–1908)Bunge, Rudolf
(1836–1907)
Wilbrandt, Adolf von
(1837–1911)
L'Arronge, Adolph
(1838–1908)
Anzengruber, Ludwig
(1839–1889)
Schnitzer, Ignaz
(1839–1921)
Goetz, Hermann
(1840–1876)
May, Karl
(1842–1912)Widmann, Joseph Viktor
(1842–1911)
Wildenbruch, Ernst von
(1845–1909)
Schönthan, Franz von
(1849–1913)
Kadelburg, Gustav
(1851–1925)
Blumenthal, Oskar
(1852–1917)
Panizza, Oskar
(1853–1921)
Ganghofer, Ludwig
(1855–1920)Jacoby, Wilhelm
(1855–1925)
Avenarius, Ferdinand
(1856–1923)
Sudermann, Hermann
(1857–1928)
Hauptmann, Carl
(1858–1921)Laufs, Carl
(1858–1900)
Wette, Adelheid
(1858–1916)Bleibtreu, Karl
(1859–1928)Jerschke, Oskar
(1861–1928)
Ruederer, Josef
(1861–1915)Alberti, Konrad
(1862–1918)
Schlaf, Johannes
(1862–1941)
Schnitzler, Arthur
(1862–1931)
Dehmel, Richard
(1863–1920)
Holz, Arno
(1863–1929)
Scheerbart, Paul
(1863–1915)
Hartleben, Otto Erich
(1864–1905)
Wedekind, Frank
(1864–1918)
Lachmann, Hedwig
(1865–1918)
Busoni, Ferruccio
(1866–1924)
Dovsky, Beatrice
(1866–1923)
Thoma, Ludwig
(1867–1921)Gerhäuser, Emil
(1868–1917)Rosenow, Emil
(1871–1904)
Hofmannsthal, Hugo von
(1874–1929)
Heiseler, Henry von
(1875–1928)
Rilke, Rainer Maria
(1875–1926)
Stavenhagen, Fritz
(1876–1906)Boßdorf, Hermann
(1877–1921)
Essig, Hermann
(1878–1918)
Mühsam, Erich
(1878–1934)
Fock, Gorch
(1880–1916)
Lautensack, Heinrich
(1881–1919)Rubiner, Ludwig
(1881–1920)
Wildgans, Anton
(1881–1932)
Ball, Hugo
(1886–1927)Ertler, Bruno
(1889–1927)
Klabund
(1890–1928)
Sorge, Reinhard
(1892–1916)Kaltneker, Hans
(1895–1919)
Some Details on How It Was Done
The XSLT file for the automatic generation of the gallery out of the TEI files that comprise our corpus can be found here.
The renaming of the image files was done with some regexps on BASH, the conversion and crunching of the images to 150px height were done with the ImageMagick command-line tool convert in a simple for loop:
for file in $SOURCE_DIR/*
do
convert $file -strip -resize x150 -quality 60 $TARGET_DIR/`basename $(echo $file | sed 's/\(gif\|png\)/jpg/g')`
doneGender Data and Placeholder Images
Our XSLT file also extracts gender information from Wikidata showing that there are only 10 female writers among the 178 authors.
As stated above, the placeholder images were done by Ruth Reiche, we chose one for female and one for male authors out of a whole bunch of silhouettes she designed for her network visualisations of characters in Daniel Kehlmann’s novel “Ruhm”.
(End of transmission.)
