Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder
Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel (31 January 1741 – 23 April 1796) was a German
Hippel was born at
Hippel had extraordinary talents, rich in wit and fancy, but his was a character full of contrasts and contradictions. Cautiousness and ardent passion, dry pedantry and piety, morality and sensuality; simplicity and ostentation composed his nature and, hence, his literary productions never attained artistic finish. In his Lebenslaufe nach aufsteigender Linie (1778–81) he intended to describe the lives of his father and grandfather, but he eventually confined himself to his own. It is an autobiography, in which persons well known to him are introduced, together with a mass of heterogeneous reflections on life and philosophy. Kreuz- and Querzüge des Ritters A bis Z (1793–94) is a satire levelled against the follies of the age: ancestral pride and the thirst for orders, decoration and the like.[2]
Among others of his better known works were Über die Ehe (1774) and Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber (1792).[2] In the latter essay, Hippel argued that the natural traits of women make them superior for many tasks, especially education. According to Jane Kneller, Hippel's "central claim" in this essay is that "excluding women from the public square is a travesty of justice that prevents the advancement of humanity toward genuine civilization."[2] Timothy F. Sellner has produced an English translation of this work under the title On Improving the Status of Women.[3] Hippel was once called the fore-runner of Jean Paul, and had some resemblance to this author, in his constant digressions and in the interweaving of scientific matter in his narrative. Like Richter he was strongly influenced by Laurence Sterne.[2] He never married.
In 1827–38 a collected edition of Hippel's works in 14 volumes was issued at Berlin. Über die Ehe was edited by Emil Brenning (Leipzig, 1872) and Gustav Moldenhauer (Leipzig, n.d. [c. 1905]), and the Lebenslaufe nach aufsteigender Linie, in a modernized edition by Alexander von Oettingen (1878), went through several editions. See J Czerny, Sterne, Hippel and Jean Paul (Berlin, 1904).[2]
References
- ISBN 9781139001144.
- ^ a b c d e f public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hippel, Theodor Gottlieb von". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 517. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel (1979) On Improving the Status of Women, tr. Timothy F. Sellner. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Further reading
- Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel: On Marriage. Ed. and trans. by Timothy F. Sellner (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Pr., 1994).
- Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel: The Status of Women. Collected Writings. Ed. and trans. by Timothy F. Sellner (Xlibris, 2009); this supersedes his earlier version of On Improving the Status of Women.