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Leo Frobenius
(1873-1938)

Active: 1893-1938 in Germany, Italy, Austria, Continental Europe; Africa

By Leon Surette (University of Western Ontario)

Indexing Data:

  • Active In: Germany, Italy, Austria, Continental Europe; Africa
  • Born In: Germany, Continental Europe
  • Activity: Theorist, Historian, Archaeologist, Mythographer

Life, Works and Times

Reader Actions

Leo Frobenius is primarily of interest to literary readers because there is ample evidence that his Kulturmorphologie informed Pound’s conception of how history could be incorporated into an epic poem. But, uncharacteristically for Pound, there is scant evidence of when and how he first came into contact with Frobenius’ theories. All we have is Kenner’s testimony that “Joseph Bard had put him onto Frobenius der Geheimrat in 1928” (507), information that Kenner received from Bard himself. However, Pound says that he first learned of Frobenius from “a Viennese refugee”, but he gives no date. But we know that it was by April of 1929, for Yeats – who was vacationing in R

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First published 12 July 2006

Citation: Surette, Leon. "Leo Frobenius". The Literary Encyclopedia. 12 July 2006.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11722, accessed 9 February 2010.]