Alfred Gercke

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Alfred Gercke (born March 20, 1860 in Hanover , † January 26, 1922 in Breslau ) was a German classical philologist . He was the editor of the Introduction to Classical Studies , which is known as Gercke-Norden after him and Eduard Norden .

Life

Alfred Gercke was the son of the secret senior building officer Otto Gercke (1825–1887) and his wife Charlotte born. Wilmanns (1834–1929), a sister of the librarian and classical philologist August Wilmanns (1833–1917).

Gercke studied classical philology from 1880 to 1883 at the University of Bonn with Hermann Usener , Franz Bücheler and Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz . From 1883 to 1884 he went to the University of Berlin to Hermann Diels . In 1885 he received his doctorate in Bonn and passed the state examination in November. From 1886 to 1888 he was a teacher at the Luisengymnasium Berlin .

After his habilitation in 1890 at the University of Göttingen under Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , he was a private lecturer there until 1893 . In 1893 he moved to the University of Königsberg , where he represented the chair of the sick Johannes Schmidt . In 1895 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Greifswald and in 1896 he was appointed full professor . In the same year he married Anna Albrecht (1871–1954) in Hanover , with whom he had four sons and a daughter. In the academic year 1908/09 Gercke was rector of the University of Greifswald. In 1909 he moved to the University of Breslau , where he was rector in 1920/21.

Gercke was a secret government councilor and since 1892 a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute .

His son Achim Gercke , born in 1902, became an influential racial theorist during the Nazi era .

Scientific work

Title page of the introduction to ancient studies ("Gercke- Norden ")

Gercke dealt intensively with the history of Greek philosophy and with Seneca . In his dissertation he edited the fragments of Chrysipps . He also published an edition of Theophrast's work Περὶ πυρός and the first critical edition of the Quaestiones naturales des Seneca (1907). As a luminary in his field, he wrote the Aristotle article for the Realencyklopädie of classical antiquity . His preoccupation with the Homeric question and the genesis of the Aeneid did not lead to any generally accepted research result.

Together with his former Greifswald colleague Eduard Norden , he published his most famous work, the three-part Introduction to Classical Studies (from 1910), which was known as Gercke-Norden after the two editors and until the publication of the Introduction to Latin Philology by Fritz Graf and the introduction to Greek philology by Heinz-Günther Nesselrath (both 1997) was unsurpassed. The Gercke-Norden was the first modern compendium of classical philology, which gave the student a comprehensive, compact introduction to the subject. Gercke himself procured the parts methodology of classical philology (1st edition 1910, 2nd edition 1912) and history of philosophy (1st edition 1910, 2nd edition 1912, 3rd edition 1922, 4th edition provided by Ernst Hoffmann 1932) . Gercke prepared the second (1912–14) and third (1921–27) edition of the introduction (as far as he experienced the work on the third) almost alone, while Norden did the same work for the first edition.

Fonts (selection)

  • Chrysippea . In: Yearbooks for Classical Philology . Supplement volume 14 (1885), pp. 689-781 (dissertation).
  • Seneca studies . In: Yearbooks for Classical Philology . Supplement volume 22 (1895), pp. 5-336. Reprint Hildesheim 1971.
  • Greek literary history taking into account the history of science . 2 volumes, Leipzig 1898. 2nd, revised edition 1905. 3rd, revised edition 1911 (= Göschen Collection 70; 557).
  • Studia Annaeana . Greifswald 1900 (supplement to the course catalog of the University of Greifswald Easter 1900).
  • Outline of the Greek phonology . Berlin 1902.
  • L. Annaei Senecae Naturalium quaestionum libros VIII edidit A. Gercke . Leipzig 1907 (= Bibliotheca Teubneriana , L. Annaei Senecae Opera quae supersunt 7). Reprint with bibliographical additions, Stuttgart 1970; Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-519-01792-X .
  • History of philosophy . In: Alfred Gercke, Eduard Norden (editor): Introduction to ancient studies . Volume 2, Leipzig / Berlin 1910, pp. 291–389. 2nd edition, Leipzig / Berlin 1912, pp. 275–382. 3rd edition, Leipzig 1922, pp. 358–477 (= Introduction to Classical Studies 2.6). 4th edition, edited by Ernst Hoffmann , Leipzig / Berlin 1932.
  • The formation of the Aeneid . Berlin 1913.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Alfred Gercke  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Gercke-Norden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rector's speeches (HKM) .
  2. ↑ Aristotle 18 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II, 2, Stuttgart 1896, Sp. 1012-1054.
predecessor Office successor
Otto Seeck Rector of the University of Greifswald
1908 		Georg Frommhold


personal data
SURNAME Gercke, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gercke, Karl Friedrich August Alfred (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist; University professor and rector in Greifswald and Breslau
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1922
Place of death Wroclaw