Theophil Spoerri , was a Swiss writer and academic.
Family
Theophil Spoerri was the son of a Methodist Preacher called Jakob Gottlieb Spoerri and of his wife Maria Eugenie Thiele/Spoerri. He had a cousin, also named :de: Theophil Spörri|Theophil Spörri who was a prominent Swiss Methodist theologian and with whom he is sometimes confused.
He had a nephew, from his mother's side of the family, called Daniel Isaac Feinstein. When the boy was 11 his father was arrested and killed. Daniel was then adopted by his uncle, Theophil Spoerri and changed his name to Daniel Spoerri. Daniel Spoerri subsequently gained prominence as an artist.
Professional biography
Theophil Spoerri studied at Zürich, Siena and Paris. He obtained his doctorate at Bern in 1916. His dissertation was published in Milan in 1918 under the Italian-language title “Il dialetto della Valsesia”. Between 1912 and 1922 he worked as a high school teacher in Bern. Between 1922 and 1956 he was an Associate Professor of Romance Philology at the University of Zurich where his students included the future novelist Max Frisch. In respect of university administration he was made Dean in 1932, and university Rector between 1948 and 1950. Between 1942 and 1951, together with his colleague :de:Emil Staiger|Professor Emil Staiger, he produced a quarterly publication entitled “Trivium. Schweizerische Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Stilkritik” Spoerri held an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva. He published several essays on Dante Alighieri, and was a holder of the Golden Dante-Medal. Spoerri's religious upbringing gave him a powerful religious, social and political commitment. In 1940 he joined with others to form an anti-Nazi organisation called the Gotthard League, becoming its first president. He was also a member of the Neue Helvetische Gesellschaft and of the Oxford Group along with the Moral Re-Armament movement that grew out of it. The strong religious element in his make-up was also apparent in his academic research work which covered writers such as Blaise Pascal, Jean Racine, Dante Alighieri, Ludovico Ariosto und Torquato Tasso.
Works
Renaissance und Barock bei Ariost und Tasso. Versuch einer Anwendung Wölfflin'scher Kunstbetrachtung, Bern 1922
Von der dreifachen Wurzel der Poesie, Zürich/Leipzig 1925
Die drei Wege des Erkennens in Wissenschaft, Dichtung und Offenbarung, Berlin 1926
Französische Metrik, München 1929
Die Götter des Abendlandes : Eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Heidentum in der Kultur unserer Zeit, Berlin 1930
Einführung in die Göttliche Komödie, Zürich 1946
Grundkräfte der europäischen Geschichte : Wie die Welt von Grund auf anders werden könnte, Hamburg 1951
Die Struktur der Existenz : Einführung in die Kunst der Interpretation, Zürich 1951
Der Weg zur Form : Dasein und Verwirklichung des Menschen im Spiegel der europäischen Dichtung, Hamburg 1954
Der verborgene Pascal. Eine Einführung in das Denken Pascals als Philosophie für den Menschen von morgen, Hamburg 1955
Kleines Präludium zur Poesie : vom Geheimnis des Schönen und von den Grenzen der Poesie, Hamburg 1957
Dante und die europäische Literatur : Das Bild des Menschen in der Struktur der Sprache, Stuttgart 1963
Dynamik aus der Stille. Die Aktualität Frank Buchmans, Luzern/Wuppertal 1971
