Alexander Jung (literary historian)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacob Friedrich Alexander Jung (born March 28, 1799 in Rastenburg ; died August 20, 1884 in Königsberg ) was a German publicist, literary historian, storyteller and poet.

Life

From the beginning, Jung's life was overshadowed by death and illness, as his mother and twin brother died in his birth. The first years were difficult for the ailing boy suffering from rickets , as his father was regimental doctor in the 50th Prussian Pioneer Regiment von Diercke and was mostly absent as a result. Up to the age of twelve he was tutored in the house, after that he attended elementary school and then the Catholic high school in Braunsberg . Attending school was repeatedly interrupted by illness, in particular an eye disease occurred that was to hinder him particularly in later years. His teacher at the grammar school, Johann Heinrich Schmülling , appears in the autobiographical key novel Rosmarin or The School of Life in the figure of Celestine. As his eye condition worsened, he dropped out of high school without a degree. The suicide of a close friend in 1822 also plunged him into melancholy.

Under appropriately tragic circumstances, he met his future wife, Johanna Heubach, on the very day when her brother, who had been hit while bathing, was carried home dead. In the meantime, Jung's father had returned to Danzig from the war with the idea that the son should marry a wealthy heiress who had already been chosen and dedicate himself to agriculture. Jung, on the other hand, wanted to marry Miss Heubach and study theology. The following years were difficult for Jung, temporarily he also took a private tutor position with a senior magistrate Siegfried. He finally went to Berlin in 1826 , completed his Abitur in 1827 and enrolled at the University of Berlin in theology and philosophy , where he heard from Marheineke , Neander , Schleiermacher , Lachmann , Boeckh , Heinrich Ritter , Alexander von Humboldt and, above all, from Hegel . In 1828 he went to Königsberg , where he heard lectures by Lehnerdt , Olshausen and Herbart .

He could not meet the health requirements of the preaching position he was striving for, and his undogmatic views would soon have led to problems. Finally, after a stay in Gdansk, he returned to Königsberg in 1833, where he met Karl Rosenkranz , with whom he was to become a lifelong friend. In 1838 the two friends went on a trip through Germany, during which they visited Ludwig Tieck and Jacob Grimm in Dresden , Ludwig Uhland , Ferdinand Wolf , Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher and Johann Emanuel Veith in Vienna , Schelling , Baader , Görres and Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert in Munich , met Hermann Marggraff in Leipzig and finally Bettina von Arnim and Varnhagen von Ense in Berlin .

In 1834 Jung and Johanna Heubach married. This marriage resulted in four children, a son and three daughters. The eldest daughter Ottilie first became a teacher, but then had to give up this job due to a throat ailment and in the following years looked after her ailing, visually impaired father, the repeatedly suffering mother who died in 1868, and a younger sister who was ill for life. Jung received his doctorate in 1836, was elected a member of the German Society in Königsberg , he found a job as a teacher at a school for secondary daughters, gave lectures and began to publish on social and literary-historical topics, which would be the focus of his activities in the following years . From 1841 Jung published the "Königsberger Literatur-Blatt", which appeared every two weeks, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1845 the publication had to be stopped and Varnhagen von Ense consoled: “That we have [no literature] in Germany that could be equated with pure zeal, noble demeanor and conscientiousness, must be a consolation for you. I believe that in our dissolved, confused conditions, the ground will be missing for a long time on which a magazine for honest, solid and yet lively criticism could thrive. "

In his literary-historical work, it was Jung who was one of the first to advocate appropriate appreciation for the poetry of Young Germany , especially that of Charles Sealsfield and Karl Gutzkow , whose enthusiastic admirer he was, and of course Ludwig Börne , whose style he committed was. Of course, he misunderstood the importance of Heine - like others. Jung's undoing was the fact that he was a representative of the as well as that which concerned the conflict between a drifting classics, the young German poets and a Munich romanticism tinged with Catholicism. In his lecture (1842), for example, he demands that German literature should meet the requirements of both classical and modern literary theory:

“For now, of course, double what should be achieved at the same time, the character of classicism and popularity, that of the ideal and that of the real and the real. We demand works that do not give in to the earlier ones in terms of idea and form, and yet at the same time respond to real life itself. "

It is hardly surprising that representatives of more determined positions reacted with a correspondingly decisive response in this dispute, which also involved the interpretative sovereignty of Hegel's legacy. Here belongs the devastating criticism that Friedrich Engels exercised in 1842 in the "German Yearbooks for Science and Art" of Jung's "Lectures on Modern German Literature":

“In every movement, in every battle of ideas, there is a certain kind of confused minds who are only at ease in the dark. As long as the principles are not yet at peace with themselves, such subjects are allowed to run along; as long as everyone struggles for clarity, it is not easy to recognize their predestined lack of clarity. But when the elements differ, principle stands against principle, then it is time to say goodbye to those useless and to come to terms with them. because then their hollowness shows itself in a terrifying way. "

The decisiveness of such rejection still resonates with modern authors, for example when Werner Jung judges in Killy's literary dictionary: "Jung's literary activity is characterized by a deep discrepancy between excessive self-overestimation and factual epigonality."

In later years, Jung's circumstances became increasingly difficult in terms of both health and livelihood. Eventually, his trusted friend Rosenkranz managed to obtain a lifelong grant from the Schiller Foundation in Dresden in 1859 . From 1850 Jung began to publish works of literature and poetry. The key novel Rosemary or The School of Life (1862) is of importance as a biographical document . Here the important figures from Jung's life appear in a superficially veiled form: Celestine = Schmülling, Abelard = Schleiermacher, Parmenides = Hegel, Mörike = Marheinecke, Bernhard = Neander, Ernestine = Frau Oberamtmann Siegfried, Armin = Hermann Jannert, etc. In the end, these literary attempts remained but without recognition and effect going beyond the small area. Jung died in Königsberg in 1884.

Works

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Alexander Jung  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Königsberg literature sheet. Danzig 1841-1845, ZDB ID 551606-7 .
  2. ↑ Quoted from Reifferscheid: Jung, Alexander. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie , Vol. 50, p. 721.
  3. ^ Jung: Lectures on the modern literature of the Germans. 1842, p. 155http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D66xfAAAAcAAJ~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3DS.%20155~PUR%3D
  4. ^ Friedrich Engels: Alexander Jung. Lectures on modern German literature. In: German year books. July 1842. Printed in: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Werke. Volume 1. Dietz, Berlin 1976, pp. 433-445, E-Text .
  5. ^ Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Works. Volume 1. Dietz, Berlin 1976, p. 433.
  6. ↑ Hermann Jannert was the friend who died on September 1, 1822 by suicide.
personal data
SURNAME Jung, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jung, Jacob Friedrich Alexander (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German literary historian and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Rastenburg
DATE OF DEATH August 20, 1884
Place of death Königsberg (Prussia)