Alexander Büchner

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Alexander Büchner (around 1865)

Alexander Büchner (born October 25, 1827 in Darmstadt , † March 7, 1904 in Hanover ; full name Alexander Karl Ludwig Büchner ) was a Franco-German writer and professor of literary history. He is the youngest sibling of the famous Büchner family (see below). In France he was sometimes referred to as Louis Büchner, which can lead to confusion with his older brother Ludwig .

Life

Büchner was a son of the doctor Ernst Büchner (1786–1861) and his wife Louise Reuss (1791–1858). His siblings were the later revolutionary and writer Georg Büchner (1813–1837), Mathilde Büchner (1815–1888), the later manufacturer and politician Wilhelm Büchner (1816–1892), the later writer and women's rights activist Luise Büchner (1821–1877) and the philosopher and writer Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899).

Büchner studied law at the University of Gießen and was there in 1845 a member of the old Gießen fraternity Allemannia as well as the fraternity Rhenania and from 1846 of the Corps Rhenania Gießen . Together with his brother Ludwig, he was involved in the revolutionary efforts of 1848. He was the editor of the magazine Der Jüngste Tag , where he published, among other things, a criminal story about his brother Georg, in which he accused the judge Georgi of the murder of Friedrich Ludwig Weidig , the co-author of the Hessischer Landbote . In 1849 he got involved in the battles of the Baden uprising “while taking a walk”, equipped with a “dagger knife” and an uprising plan for the Odenwald farmers . Only the presence of mind of his sister Mathilde, who took both of them and made them disappear into the bushes, saved him from serious consequences. He was arrested and interrogated, but then released.

After completing his studies, he became a district court advisor in Langen (Hesse) . In 1851 he was withdrawn from his “license” because of anti-state sentiments after he had traveled with his brother Wilhelm to the world exhibition in London and met German exiles there. The plan to found a German republic and join it to the United States of America was betrayed by a spy. Alexander went to Munich to study languages ​​and literature there, and in 1852 completed his habilitation as a private lecturer at the philosophy faculty in Zurich . For a short time he lived with his brother Ludwig in Tübingen.

At the mediation of the Darmstadt co-revolutionary and friend Dr. med. Wilhelm Zimmermann, who himself lived there in exile, was able to work as a teacher of modern languages ​​at the Catholic College Notre Dame in Valenciennes ( North Department ) in 1855 . In 1857 he entered the French civil service as a high school teacher and from 1862 was professor of foreign literatures at Caen ( Calvados department ). In 1870 he took French citizenship, but did not find out about his naturalization until after the end of the Franco-Prussian War . His works in French are among the early works of comparative literature . Together with his friend Léon Dumont , he translated Jean Paul's poetics into French. He suggested the translation of Georg Büchner's Danton's death by his student Auguste Dietrich.

Büchner was married to Sophie Christ (1824–1880) from Hanau and had a son with her (Sam Büchner, 1863–1940). In 1899, Alexander married Martha Bahlsen from Hanover (1875–1949).

Works

Individual works

in German language
  • History of English Poetry , 2 volumes. Darmstadt 1855
  • French literature pictures , 2 volumes. Frankfurt am Main 1858
  • Sound shifting and confusion , treatise on German phonology . Darmstadt 1863
  • Jean Paul in France . Stuttgart 1863
  • The Bristol Boy Wonder . Leipzig 1861
  • Lord Byron's last love. A biographical novella. 2 volumes (novellas). Leipzig 1862
  • The "great" year. Before, during and after 1848 (memories). Casting 1900
in French
  • La jeune Allemagne et l'école romantique . 1863
  • The roman réaliste en Allemagne . 1864
  • Les comédies de Shakespeare . Caen, 1864
  • L'hercule de l'Esthonie. Caen 1865
  • Considérations sur le roman modern. OO, undated [after 1868]
  • Hamlet le Danois . Paris, 1878
  • Translated: Poétique ou Introduction a l'Estéthique par Jean-Paul FR Richter

Work editions

  • Ludwig Ready (Ed.): Selected writings . Gesellschaft Hessischer Literaturfreunde Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-87390-194-3 .

literature

  • Heiner Boehncke, Peter Brunner, Hans Sarkowicz : The Büchners or the desire to change the world . Frankfurt a. M. 2008. ISBN 978-3-7973-1045-3 .
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 168–170.
  • Matthias Gröbel: Georg Büchner's siblings in the revolution of 1848/49 . In: Georg Büchner Yearbook , Vol. 12 (2009–2012). Berlin / Boston 2012, pp. 371–406.
  • Matthias Gröbel, Manfred HW Köhler, Thomas Lange, Cordelia Scharpf: Human progress in human development. Georg Büchner's siblings in their century. Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-8844-3322-5 . It contains a detailed essay by Thomas Lange on Alexander Büchner's life and work.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Wentzcke : Fraternity lists. Second volume: Hans Schneider and Georg Lehnert: Gießen - The Gießener Burschenschaft 1814 to 1936. Görlitz 1942, N. Rhenania. No. 4.

Web links

Wikisource: Alexander Büchner  - Sources and full texts