Everything about Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann totally explained
Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann (
March 4,
1793 -
March 13,
1851) was a
German philologist and
critic.
Biography
He was born in
Brunswick, in what is now
Lower Saxony.
He studied at
Leipzig and
Göttingen, devoting himself mainly to philological studies. In
1815 he joined the
Prussian army as a volunteer
chasseur and accompanied his detachment to
Paris, but didn't see active service. In 1816 he became an assistant master in the Friedrichswerder
gymnasium at
Berlin, and a
Privatdozent at the university. The same summer he became one of the principal masters in the Friedrichs-Gymnasium of
Königsberg, where he assisted his colleague, the Germanist
Friedrich Karl Köpke, with his edition of
Rudolf von Ems'
Barlaam und Josaphat (1818), and also assisted his friend in a contemplated edition of the works of
Walther von der Vogelweide.
In January 1818 he became professor extraordinarius of classical philology in the
University of Königsberg, and at the same time began to lecture on
Old German grammar and the
Middle High German poets. He devoted himself during the following seven years to an extraordinarily detailed study of those subjects, and in 1824 obtained leave of absence in order to search the libraries of middle and south Germany for further materials.
In
1825 Lachmann was nominated extraordinary professor of classical and German philology at the
Humboldt University,
Berlin (ordinary professor 1827); and in 1830 he was admitted a member of the
Academy of Sciences.
Lachmann, who was the translator of the first volume of PE Müller's
Sagabibliothek des skandinavischen Altertums (1816), is a figure of considerable importance in the history of German philology (see
Rudolf von Raumer,
Geschichte der germanischen Philologie, 1870). In his
"Habilitationsschrift" über die ursprungliche Gestalt des Gedichts von der Nibelungen Noth (1816), and in his review of
Hagen's
Nibelungen and
Benecke's
Bonerius, contributed in 1817 to the
Jenaische Literaturzeitung he'd already laid down the rules of
textual criticism and elucidated the phonetic and metrical principle of Middle High German in a manner which marked a distinct advance in that branch of investigation.
The rigidly scientific character of his method becomes increasingly apparent in the
Auswahl aus den hochdeutschen Dichtern des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (1820), in the edition of
Hartmann's
Iwein (1827), in those of Walther von der Vogelweide (1827) and
Wolfram von Eschenbach (1833), in the papers "
Über das Hildebrandslied," "
Über althochdeutsche Betonung und Verskunst," "
Über den Eingang des Parzivals," and "
Über drei Bruchstücke niederrheinischer Gedichte" published in the
Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, and in
Der Nibelunge Not und die Klage (1826), which was followed by a critical commentary in 1836.
Lachmann's
Betrachtungen über Homer's Iliad, first published in the
Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy in 1837 and 1841, in which he sought to show that the
Iliad consists of eighteen independent "layers" variously enlarged and interpolated, had considerable influence on 19th century
Homeric scholarship, although his views are no longer accepted.
His smaller edition of the
New Testament appeared in 1831, the 3rd edition in 1846, and the larger second edition, in two volumes between 1842 and 1850. The plan of Lachmann's edition, which he explained in his
Studia Krit. of 1830, is a modification of the unaccomplished project of
Richard Bentley. Lachmann was the first major editor to break from the
Textus receptus, seeking to restore the most ancient reading current in
manuscripts of the
Alexandrian text-type, using the agreement of the
Western authorities (
Old Latin and Greek Western
Uncials) as the main proof of antiquity of a reading where the oldest Alexandrian authorities differ.
Lachmann's edition of
Lucretius (1850), which was the principal occupation of his life from 1845, is perhaps his greatest achievement of scholarship. He demonstrated how the three main manuscripts all derived from one
archetype, containing 302 pages of 26 lines to a page. Further, he was able to show that this archetype was a copy of a manuscript written in a
minuscule hand, which in itself was a copy of a manuscript of the 4th or 5th centuries written in
rustic capitals. To say his recreation of the text was accepted is anticlimactic;
HAJ Munro characterized this accomplishment as "a work which will be a landmark for scholars as long as the Latin language continues to be studied." Lachmann also edited
Propertius (1816);
Catullus (1829);
Tibullus (1829);
Genesius (1834);
Terentianus Maurus (1836);
Babrius (1845);
Avianus (1845);
Gaius (1841-1842); the
Agrimensores Romani (1848-1852); and
Lucilius (edited after his death by Vahlen, 1876). He also translated
Shakespeare's sonnets (1820) and
Macbeth (1829).
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