August von Rode

August Rode , since 1803 August von Rode (born December 22, 1751 in Dessau , † June 16, 1837 there ) was a German writer , civil servant and politician .

Life

August Rode was born in 1751 as the tenth and last child of Sophie Eleonore Rode, a former lover of the "old Dessauer" Leopold I of Anhalt-Dessau , and of the court and district councilor Johann August Rode. He was half-brother of the officer and military writer Georg Heinrich von Berenhorst (1733-1814). After leaving school in Dessau, he studied law, Latin, mathematics, physics, history and French in Halle and Leipzig from 1768–1771 . In 1771 he became court teacher of Count Franz von Waldersee , an illegitimate son of Prince Leopold III. Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau . After founding the Philanthropinum in Dessau in 1774, he became an employee of Johann Bernhard Basedow . 1787 was Rode by Leopold III. appointed court advisor and entrusted with the management of his private correspondence and the cabinet minutes. He accompanied the prince on most of his travels at home and abroad. In 1795 he received the title of Cabinet Councilor. In 1803 Friedrich Wilhelm III raised him . of Prussia at the request of Leopold III. into the nobility. In 1807 he was appointed to the Privy Council and in 1810 to the Real Secret Council. In 1813 Rode was by Leopold III. Dismissed in dishonor, but rehabilitated after his death in 1817 and entrusted by Duke Leopold IV. Friedrich von Anhalt-Dessau with the merging of various ducal book collections into a public library and its supervision.

Resting place on the new burial place in Dessau

Acting as a permanent official and politician

During the Napoleonic Wars , Rode served Leopold III. several times as an envoy. So after the battle of Jena and Auerstedt he was sent to the advancing French troops to assert the neutrality of Anhalt-Dessau. He also accompanied his prince on his trip to Napoleon in Paris in 1807. Rode contributed significantly to the fact that Anhalt-Dessau remained independent and was comparatively little affected by the effects of the war.

Act as a writer and translator

His first writings were written during his activity as a court teacher and at the Philanthropinum and pursued a pedagogical goal.

Rode achieved great importance as a translator of ancient Roman writers. After his translation of the “ Psyche ” of Apuleius had met with a very good response, he translated the entire “ Golden Donkey ” of this writer and the “ Metamorphoses ” of Ovid into German. He distinguished himself not only by his linguistic elegance, but also by his philological thoroughness. His edition of the "Ten Books on Architecture" by Vitruvius remained the authoritative German edition until it was translated by Curt Fensterbusch in 1964 and is still in print today.

His descriptions of the Anhalt castles and parks in Wörlitz and Dessau are not only travel guides that are still popular today, but also an important source for understanding, preserving and restoring the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm . Reprints are also still available.

estate

The written legacy of the Rode and Bott families is in the Dessau department of the Saxony-Anhalt State Archives .

Works

• Correspondence from some children. Dessau (1776) 2nd expanded edition Hanau (1778).
• Children's plays. Dessau (1776), Leipzig (1777).
• The golden donkey, from the Latin of Apuleius of Madaura. Dessau (1783), new editions 1783, 1790, 1906, 1909, 1920, 1922, 1923, 1944, 1947, 1956, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1978, 1985, 1988, 1994, 2004.
• Historical and geographical articles concerning the states of the House of Brandenburg, taken from the new Paris Encyclopedia and translated into German. Berlin (1787):
• Description of the prince. Anhalt-Dessau country house and English garden in Wörlitz. Dessau (1788), extended new editions 1798 and 1814, revised new editions 1928, reprints 1987, 1989, and ongoing.
• Publius Ovidius Naso's metamorphoses, translated and annotated. Berlin (1791), new editions 1794, 1816.
• The architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, translated from the Roman original. Leipzig (1796). Reprints 1987, 1995, 2001.
• Signposts through the sights in and around Dessau. Dessau (1795–1798), new edition 1814, excerpts reprinted in 2004.
• The beginnings of the fine way of life and knowledge of the world, for teaching the youth of both sexes, also for the heart of adults. by Dr. John Trusler. Translated from English by Karl Philipp Moritz. Second edition revised, also with additions and a gleanings from Chesterfield and others, with the same occasional changes by August Rode. Berlin at August Mylius 1799, 230 pp.
• Life of Mr. Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff. Dessau (1801) reprinted 1994.
• Markus Akenside's Amusements of the Imagination. A poem in three songs, translated from English in the verse of the original. Berlin (1814).
• The Gothic House in Wörlitz, along with other additions to the description of the ducal country house and garden in Wörlitz. Dessau (1818).

literature

• Wilhelm Hosäus :  Rode, August von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 29, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, p. 2 f.
• Hartmut Ross: August Rode and the Dessau-Wörlitzer Reformwerk. In: The Wörlitz English systems - views between yesterday and tomorrow. Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1987, pp. 143–164.
• Ingo Pfeiffer: August Rode as a translator for ancient authors. In: Communications from the Association for Anhalt Regional Studies. 10th year. Köthen 2002, pp. 123-133.
• Michael Niedermeier : From writing to the landscape. The Isis initiation of Apulejus in the mystical part of the Wörlitz Garden. In: Hartmut Böhme, Christof Rapp, Wolfgang Rösler (eds.): Translation and Transformation. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, pp. 267–308.

Web links

Wikisource: August von Rode  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about August von Rode in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about August von Rode  in the German Digital Library
• Estate of the Rode and Bott families in the State Archives Saxony-Anhalt, Dessau department