Julius Petersen (literary scholar)
Julius Petersen | |
---|---|
Leipzig Berlin | |
Occupation(s) | Professor of German Literature (Berlin, Frankfurt, Yale, Basel) |
Spouse(s) | 1. Anna Maria Barbara Ortmayer 2. Ella Schmidt (born Dornbach) |
Parents | (father) |
Julius Petersen | |
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Julius Petersen (5 November 1878 - 22 August 1941) was a German literary scholar and university professor, principally at the Friedrich Wilhelm University (as it was known before 1949) in Berlin. He did much to rediscover the works of Theodor Fontane for twentieth century readers. Petersen himself has been described as one of the most influential academics in the field of German studies during the interwar period, but after 1945 he disappeared from university reading lists. During the 1960s interest in his life and works resurfaced, though it has frequently been on account of evident contradictions in his attitude to National Socialism during the final decade of his own life that he has attracted the interest of more recent commentators.[1][2]
Life
Provenance and early years
Julius Petersen was born in Strasbourg, which at that time was the main city in a recently annexed and still semi-detached province of Germany. His father, another Julius Petersen (1835-1909), was a senior lawyer and judge from Landau (Pfalz) who, in addition, served between October 1881 and April 1883 as a member of the German Reichstag (parliament).[3][4] The younger Julius Petersen attended secondary school at the "Nikolaischule", far away to the east in Leipzig, to where the family had evidently relocated in connection with his father's judicial appointment to the I. Strafsenat" (loosely, "first criminal bench") at the German High Court.[1]
Student years and post graduate teaching posts
He moved on to his university-level education in 1897, studying
For the next two years Petersen worked as a "Privatdozent" (tutor). In 1911 he accepted an associate professorship which came with a lectureship in Modern German Philology and Theatre Studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin.[1][8] In 1912 he switched, moving to Yale University at New Haven, Connecticut where, during 1912/13, he taught as a visiting professor. In North America he was also able to deepen his friendship with Kuno Francke at nearby Harvard University, a long established professor of German Culture and History, who is reported greatly to have respected Petersen's academic abilities.[9] His next move, during the second half of 1912 or in 1913, was to the University of Basel.[8][10]
Frankfurt
He transferred again in 1914, this time to the newly opening
Berlin
In his 1914 inaugural lecture at Frankfurt, which carried the barely translatable title "Literaturgeschichte als Wissenschaft" (loosely, "Literary History as an academic study"), Petersen sought to draw together the teaching philologies and philosophies of his recent tutors, in particular Wilhelm Scherer, Erich Schmidt and Wilhelm Dilthey. By setting out his own teaching programme in this way, Petersen invited his audience to infer an intention and ability to mediate a synthesis between philology and the history of thought, and thereby between traditionalists and modernists.[1] Six years later, with the political and social context transformed by war and revolution, this earned him an invitation to fill the professorial teaching chair in the History of Modern German Literature at Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University formerly occupied by his old tutor, Erich Schmidt. He took up the appointment at the start of the 1920/21 term. After a six-year hiatus during which the position had been unfilled, Petersen's arrival represented a new beginning: described by one commentator as "a lively and innovative presence at the university", he broke with tradition by inviting writers to the university in order that they might meet with the students. He even insisted that the writers who came received "a decent honorarium" for their trouble.[9] Julius Petersen taught at Berlin for the rest of his life .[1][11]
In 1923 Petersen became was co-director of the university
During his professorship at Berlin of more than twenty years' duration, Julius Petersen undertook several major overseas lecture tours, at least some of which were undertaken in his capacity as president, between 1926 and 1938, of the Goethe Society. These included visits to Portugal in 1927, the United States and Mexico in 1933, and to England and Estonia in 1935.[9]
A particularly important project in which Petersen engaged involved sorting, archiving and "academic evaluation" of the extensive literary estate of Theodor Fontane. In this way he made a lasting contribution to Fontane philology. Many of the students who emerged from his Fontane and "Baroque" seminars subsequently became notable literary scholars in their own right. These included Richard Alewyn, Charlotte Jolles, Wolfgang Kayser, Fritz Martini and Erich Trunz.[1] His advocacy of compromise in the so-called philological "methodology dispute" of the 1920a may not have been conceptually innovative, but through the various assignments he undertook and the various editions he oversaw of the works of icons of German literature such as Lessing, Goethe, Jean Paul and Schiller, Petersen did become the most prominent and perhaps influential of the nation's "new Germanisticists".[1]
National Socialism
Petersen was much criticised, especially
But by the 1960s a new generation was coming to the fore:
Works
The principal focus of Julius Petersen's teaching and research was on Middle High German language and literature, from the medieval period, and German literature of the New High German (modern) period, running roughly from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. He built his reputation most effectively through his work on some of the most iconic classics of German literature, most particularly Goethe, Schiller and Hölderlin.
A major project of his later years was a large-scale work intended to provide a systematic overview of literary studies. Five volumes were planned, with the title "Die Wissenschaft von der Dichtung". The first set of two volumes, entitled "Werk und Dichter" (loosely, "Poets and their works") was published in 1939. The second set, consisting of three volumes, was entitled "Dichtung in Raum und Zeit" (loosely, "Poetry in Space and Time"). It was still unpublished when he died, but it proved possible to add some final detailed corrections from the manuscripts and publish it posthumously in 1944, expended to include an introduction, by Erich Trunz, whose own academic career took off, in some respects, at the point at which Petersen's had ended.[17]
Recognition
in 1922 Petersen was accepted as an ordinary (full) member of the
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Petra Boden (2001). "Petersen, Julius: Germanist, * 5.11.1878 Straßburg, † 22.8.1941 Murnau (Oberbayern), ⚰ 5.11.1941 Berlin-Schmargendorf". Neue Deutsche Biographie. Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (HiKo), München. pp. 252–253. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
- ^ a b c d e Volker Ufertinger (9 August 2003). "Murnau als zweite Schaltstelle der Macht". Über den mächtigsten Nazi-Germanisten Petersen (Rezension / book review). Münchener Zeitungs-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG (merkur.de), München. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
- )
- ^ "Petersen, Julius, Senatspraesident bei dem Kaiserl. Oberlandsgericht in Kolmar". Deutscher Parlaments-Almanach. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. November 1881. pp. 194–195. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
- ^ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 114/1134.
- ISBN 978-3-476-00990-6. Retrieved 19 December 2021.)
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- ^ a b "Julius Petersen: Germanistik, Theaterwissenschaft". Historische Akademiemitglieder: Mitglieder der Vorgängerakademien der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
- ^ )
- ^ Julius Petersen, Ph.D. (author), Professor of German Literature, University of Basel; William Guild Howard (1914). "The contemporary short story". The German publication society & Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
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has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b c Laura Grossbach (2014). "Julius Petersen in Frankfurt". Frankfurter Literaturwissenschaftler 1914-1945, hg. von Frank Estelmann und Bernd Zegowitz. Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
- ^ Hans Knudsen [in German] (1969). "Herrmann, Max: Literarhistoriker, Theaterwissenschaftler, * 14.5.1865 Berlin, † 17.11.1942 Theresienstadt. (israelitisch)". Neue Deutsche Biographie. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. pp. 690–691. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
- ^ a b c "Gruß von Goethe". Hochschulen Germanistik. Der Spiegel (online). 30 April 1967. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
- ^ Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5, p. 454.
- ^ <Herbert Greiner-Mai: Weimar im Urteil der Welt. Hrsg.: Herbert Greiner-Mai. Aufbau, Berlin Weimar 1977, p. 347
- ^ ISBN 978-1-78074-434-6. Retrieved 22 December 2021.)
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- ISBN 3-486-56639-3. Retrieved 22 December 2021.)
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