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Salonlöwe

English translation: lion of the salons

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
German term or phrase:Salonlöwe
English translation:lion of the salons
Entered by: David Williams

08:22 Jan 23, 2009
German to English translations [PRO]
Social Sciences - History / Social history
German term or phrase: Salonlöwe
"der vermögender Bankierssohn und Salonlöwen des wilhelminischen Deutschland"
Referring to Harry Graf Kessler, who was certainly active in Berlin's salon society in the 1890s. I'm thinking along the lines of "the wealthy banker’s son from the salon society of Wilhelmine Germany".
David Williams
Germany
Local time: 01:37
lion of the salons
Explanation:
This expression is often used and totally appropriate for Kessler. Just in case there is any doubt, these are literary or cultural salons, not just drawing rooms. Apologies if I am teaching Grandma to suck eggs.

http://books.google.com/books?id=F0N59g93EBYC&pg=PA106&lpg=P...

Humboldt had long regarded the French capital as his true home. There he found, not only scientific sympathy, but the social stimulus which his vigorous and healthy mind eagerly craved. He was equally in his element as the lion of the salons and as the savant of the institute and the observatory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt

http://books.google.com/books?id=4Bi6H6TG6_oC&pg=PA161&lpg=P...

http://books.google.com/books?id=-eMhMvFYb0sC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA...


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Note added at 7 days (2009-01-30 09:24:01 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

Thanks, again, for the points.
Selected response from:

Helen Shiner
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:37
Grading comment
Thank you!!!
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
4 +7lion of the salons
Helen Shiner
5 +4Lounge lizard
Martin Robinshaw
4 +4society lion
Alexander Ryshow
3 +3socialite, society man
BrigitteHilgner
2salon playboy
Jonathan MacKerron
Summary of reference entries provided
Kessler
Helen Shiner

  

Answers


5 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 5/5 peer agreement (net): +4
Salonlöwen
Lounge lizard


Explanation:
http://www.dict.cc/?s=Salonlöwe&failed_kw=Salonlöwen

Martin Robinshaw
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:37
Native speaker of: English

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Charles Rothwell (X): I agree. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lounge lizard
2 mins
agree  Textklick
7 mins
agree  Sven Petersson
18 mins
agree  Jutta Schandel
29 mins
disagree  Helen Shiner: I disagree on the basis of Kessler's biography - he was a very productive writer, Kulturkritiker and supporter of many aspects of the arts and many artists, initiator of projects. He had no time for lazy lounge lizardry.
1 hr
  -> I would suggest 'socialite' as a more apposite term in that case.
agree  Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
2 days 21 hrs
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6 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +4
Salonlöwen
society lion


Explanation:


Alexander Ryshow
Belarus
Local time: 02:37
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in RussianRussian

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Angela Parker: "Lounge lizard" sounds a bit too negative to me
2 hrs
  -> Danke, Angela!
agree  Helen Shiner: I think this is another good solution to the problem in Kessler's case.
2 hrs
  -> Danke, Helen!
agree  franglish
6 hrs
  -> Danke!
agree  Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
2 days 21 hrs
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5 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +3
Salonlöwen
socialite, society man


Explanation:
Meint Pons Collins Großwörterbuch.

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Note added at 28 mins (2009-01-23 08:51:21 GMT)
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I don't know about the "salon aspect" that depends on the context. If they are important I could imagine that the "salons" are mentioned at some other point in the text? What precisely do you want to say about Graf Kessler?

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2009-01-23 10:09:29 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Hm - I find this a bit amazing - I would have thought that you can be a socialite and a pacifist at the same time. Or does the text want to stress that he was somewhat lazy and superficial in his youth and then became more serious and involved?

BrigitteHilgner
Austria
Local time: 01:37
Native speaker of: Native in GermanGerman
PRO pts in category: 32
Notes to answerer
Asker: Yes, I was contemplating socialite, but wouldn't it be necessary to specify the salon aspect? Maybe not.

Asker: The text says that he changed from this, in his early years, becoming a convinced republican and pacifist in later life.

Asker: Indeed, but I guess it is the apparent contrast between his "prewar aestheticism and his postwar politics" (see ref. below) that this is getting at.


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Nicole Schnell
3 mins
  -> Danke schön, Nicole.
agree  Paul Skidmore: For an academic / semi-academic publication I would use "socialite"
40 mins
  -> Thank you, Paul. As usual, context is important.
agree  Tanja K
1 hr
  -> Danke schön, Tanja.
neutral  Helen Shiner: I don't think this is strong enough - the lion bit is missing./'Lion of the salons' is often used, as is the verb to lionise which is related. These were people who were at the centre of cultural happenings, nothing to do with pussy cats.
2 hrs
  -> I think "Salonlöwen" were more the pussy cat version - not the real thing. ;-)
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17 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 2/5Answerer confidence 2/5
Salonlöwen
salon playboy


Explanation:
yet another

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2009-01-23 10:28:46 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

less perjorative= mainstay of Berlin's salon crowd/scene/landscape

Jonathan MacKerron
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 47
Notes to answerer
Asker: That may be going a BIT too far.

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2 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +7
Salonlöwen
lion of the salons


Explanation:
This expression is often used and totally appropriate for Kessler. Just in case there is any doubt, these are literary or cultural salons, not just drawing rooms. Apologies if I am teaching Grandma to suck eggs.

http://books.google.com/books?id=F0N59g93EBYC&pg=PA106&lpg=P...

Humboldt had long regarded the French capital as his true home. There he found, not only scientific sympathy, but the social stimulus which his vigorous and healthy mind eagerly craved. He was equally in his element as the lion of the salons and as the savant of the institute and the observatory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt

http://books.google.com/books?id=4Bi6H6TG6_oC&pg=PA161&lpg=P...

http://books.google.com/books?id=-eMhMvFYb0sC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA...


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 7 days (2009-01-30 09:24:01 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

Thanks, again, for the points.

Helen Shiner
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:37
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 105
Grading comment
Thank you!!!

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Ingeborg Gowans (X): well you taught "this grandma", thanks
30 mins
  -> Mine is 97 and as sharp as a pin - I can't teach her anything except perhaps how to turn her mobile phone on!! Thanks, Ingeborg.
agree  Ann C Sherwin: "salon lion" also gets quite a few hits if you filter out hair and beauty salons.
1 hr
  -> Thanks, Ann
agree  Inge Meinzer: great research! :-)
2 hrs
  -> Thanks - he crops up in my own research, so I'm a bit of a cheat really!
agree  Lancashireman: Yet another example of why it is best to wait and see what comes in a couple of hours later, i.e. before merrily clicking away on 'agree'.
3 hrs
  -> Thanks, Andrew
agree  franglish
3 hrs
  -> Thank you, franglish
agree  Rebecca Garber: This fits the time period better than society lion, which I do really like for moderns.
4 hrs
  -> Thanks, Rebecca
agree  Dr.G.MD (X)
13 hrs
  -> Thanks, Dr G
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Reference comments


1 hr peer agreement (net): +1
Reference: Kessler

Reference information:
"Count Harry Kessler, German diplomat, aesthete, patron of the arts, publisher, biographer, diarist, librettist, collector of art and books, army officer, and museum director, was, in W.H. Auden's opinion, 'probably the most cosmopolitan man who ever lived.' His life seems to have been written by Thomas Mann, whose fate in many ways ran parallel. Easton's THE RED COUNT can be enjoyed as both cultural history and ironic tragedy."—Harper's magazine
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9472.php

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Note added at 1 hr (2009-01-23 09:56:35 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

The life of Count Harry Kessler (1868-1937), the famous Anglo-German art patron, writer, and activist, offers a vivid and engrossing perspective on the tumultuous transformation of art and politics that took place in modern Europe between 1890 and 1930. In the first half of his career Kessler was one of the most ardent and well-known champions of aesthetic modernism in Imperial Germany, becoming a friend and patron to pioneering artists and writers of his day, most notably French sculptor Aristide Maillol, Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, English theater designer Gordon Craig, and Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal and, in his capacity as director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Weimar and vice-president of the German Artists League, served as a spokesman and lightning rod for embattled modern art. In the aftermath of the First World War, in which he served as a soldier, propagandist, and secret agent, Kessler embarked on a public career as a committed internationalist and pacifist, a stance that led ultimately to his exile from Germany upon the Nazi seizure of power. Making use of the recently discovered portions of Kessler's extensive diaries, one of the most remarkable journals ever written, Laird Easton explains the reasons for this startling metamorphosis, showing for the first time the continuities between Kessler's prewar aestheticism and his postwar politics and highlighting his importance within the larger history of the rise of modern art and politics. This lively narrative, the first English-language biography of Harry Kessler, provides a rich and fascinating portrait of the man whom W. H. Auden called "a crown witness of our times."
http://books.google.com/books?id=MvJRMR6zyTYC&dq=Kessler sal...

Helen Shiner
United Kingdom
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 105

Peer comments on this reference comment (and responses from the reference poster)
agree  Ingeborg Gowans (X): good and extensive research which supports your answer
1 hr
  -> Thanks, Ingeborg - he was a fascinating and admirable man in many respects.
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