Christian Nicolaus Naumann

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Christian Nicolaus Naumann (born December 6, 1720 in Budissin , Markgraftum Oberlausitz , † February 15, 1797 in Görlitz ) was a German poet of Anacreontics , the Enlightenment and the early Sturm und Drang .

biography

Naumann was the son of the senior lawyers and royal Polish and electoral Saxon secretary of the governorate of the Margraviate of Upper Lusatia . His relative, who promoted his studies, was the Electoral Saxon Colonel, builder August the Strong, Johann Christoph von Naumann (1664–1742).

Naumann attended grammar school in Bautzen and studied law at the universities of Leipzig and Rostock. Study visits took him to Lübeck and Hamburg. In 1743 he became court master in Lower Saxony. He then continued his studies in Halle and Leipzig.

Naumann turned to literature, his real inclination, at an early age. He is one of the early authors of anacreontics, but in 1743 he did not manage to trigger the anacreontic trend in Germany with his first work "Joking songs based on the pattern of anacreon, published by a Bauzner". In his language he was still too clinging to the metaphors and the pomposity of the baroque .

He participated in numerous magazines, 1745 in the “Freigeist”, 1747–1748 in the “Encouragements for the Pleasure of the Mind”, 1747–1748 in the “Naturforscher”, 1748–1749 in the “Writer according to fashion”, 1748ff the "Hamburgischer Magazin", 1752 on the "Kritischen Sylphen" and 1762 on the "Pfälzisches Wochenblatt". In addition, he founded his own magazines, in 1745 the “New Loss Conditions of Mind”, 1747–1748 “Demokrit”, 1747–1748 “Lover of the Beautiful Sciences”, 1754 the “Reasoner” and 1749 the monthly “Changes”, in which he based on the example of the English moralists and the weekly papers of Bodmer and Gottscheds.

In his writings he dealt with scientific and literary questions and printed his poems. Under the influence of Christlob Mylius and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , he took a free- spiritual point of view.

In 1748 he founded the "German Speaking Society" there in Leipzig, chaired by Abraham Gotthelf Kästner . In the same year he moved from there to Jena and became a lecturer at the Electoral-Saxon Convictorium and accepted as a full member of German society .

In 1749 he obtained his doctorate in philosophy in Jena and held lectures. In 1751 he gave lectures in Marburg, but had to realize that he had no prospect of being appointed professor.

Nikolaikirche (Berlin)

Around 1753 he moved in with Lessing in Berlin at Nikolaikirchhof 10 and earned his living with private lessons. The lively circle of friends also frequented here: Mylius, Gumpertz, von Breitenbach, Karl Wilhelm Ramler , Moses Mendelssohn and the Swiss Johann Georg Sulzer . He then began a wandering life for more than three decades, which led him alternately to Hamburg, Frankfurt an der Oder, Leipzig, Zurich, Dresden and Strasburg. He made friends with numerous important contemporaries, among them Friedrich von Hagedorn , Dreyer and Bodmer. He spent the last twenty years of his life in Görlitz.

Despite his poverty, which made him dependent on support from patrons all his life, he was always cheerful and human-friendly, which found expression in good-natured jokes.

The criticism denied him any independent ideas. His “ Nimrod ” of 1752 has been called his “most notorious work” . As the “absolutely incompetent” successor to Bodmer and Klopstock , he wrote 8000 hexameters in this , of which “not the tenth part” was even externally correct. They were filled “with clumsy absurdities of all kinds, which he mostly related to the person of Nimrod in a ridiculously nonsensical way. The prosaically low and yet extremely bombastic language rivaled the poverty and absurdity of the content. The work was not entirely lacking in eulogies; but from now on Naumann's poetic inability was a foregone conclusion for all those capable of judgment. "

His last writings can be assigned to the “ Sturm und Drang ”. Towards the end of his life he occupied himself with topographical studies. "After the leaders of our literature had previously only paid him temporary attention, none of them paid any attention to him or his work in the last forty years." Naumann died on the same day, but sixteen years after his friend Lessing.

Quotes

“In addition to Mylius and Lessing, there appears their much teased pub and newspaper mate, the 'little Bautzener' Christian Nicolaus Naumann (1720–1797), a funny, good fellow who then made himself look ridiculous as the singer of the laboriously grown up 'Nimrod'. But this oldest member of society judged even his pseudo-epic in bumpy hexameters, which he had designed before Klopstock's 'Messiah', very modestly; Naumann also granted the young duo brother Lessing the Poetry Prize, although he had preceded him in 1743 with pretty 'joking songs based on the pattern of Anakreon', which Consentius first recognized as the best expert on the group. In all of his journalistic and academic attempts, his friend, unsuccessful and inept as a writer, always proved himself honest and helpful. His world happiness should first benefit his friends; But when in 1752 he had one of his moral essays printed on happiness and understanding, Lessing's mockery hit him: Man, how can you write about two things that you have never had! Serious and warm, however, the Berlin poem 'To the Lord N.' to the 'friend of the muses' ... "

- Erich Schmidt : Lessing. His life and his writings

Works

  • 1743 "Joking songs based on the pattern of the Anakreon, edited by a Bauzner"
  • 1746 “Die Martinsgans”, shepherd's game in verse
  • 1746 “Praise to the Godhead”, Ode
  • 1749 Speeches on the price of Duke Karl von Braunschweig-Lüneburg
  • 1750 "Of the majesty of the creator in the works of nature"
  • 1751 "Of the sublime in morals"
  • 1751 "Sensations for virtue in satirical poems"
  • 1752 Speeches for the price of the Swedish King Friedrich, Landgrave of Hesse
  • 1752 "Judgments based on experience about the difference between good and evil"
  • 1752 "Nimrod, a heroic poem in 24 books by an honorary member of the Royal British- German Society in Göttingen"
  • 1753 "Notes on Mind and Happiness"
  • 1763 "Satires"
  • 1772 "Writings from the area of ​​personal reflection, with taste and feeling"
  • 1782 "To Germany"
  • 1789 "Industrial and Commercial Topography of Electoral Saxony"
  • 1792 "Friandisen of life and joy, whereby the noble becomes more amiable and the amiable noble"
  • 1794 "News from the mining in Görlitz"

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Christian Nicolaus Naumann  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Reinalter (Ed.): Enlightenment Societies. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1993, ISBN 3-631-45413-9 . Composed societies in Leipzig were z. B. the German Society , the German Speaking Society and the Trusted Society .
  2. ↑ "Lessing lived from 1752 to 1755 in the Nikolaikirchhof 10 house. Here he wrote" Miss Sara Sampson "and not" Minna von Barnhelm "as the board says. He wrote “Minna von Barnhelm” at Am Königsgraben 10, where he lived from 1763–1767 with the engraver Schleuen. At Nikolaikirchhof 10, he lived on the 2nd floor in the room and chamber and shared the "apartment" with the writer Naumann and his brother Theophil. The lively circle of friends also frequented here: Mylius, Gumpertz, von Breitenbach, Ramler, Moses Mendelssohn and the Swiss Sulzer. ” Www.nikolaiviertel-berlin.de
  3. ^ Franz Muncker:  Christian Nicolaus Naumann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1886, p. 304.
  4. ^ Franz Muncker:  Christian Nicolaus Naumann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1886, p. 305.
  5. ↑ Erich Schmidt: Lessing. His life and his writings. 1983, ISBN 3-487-07317-X , pp. 68f.
personal data
SURNAME Naumann, Christian Nicolaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet of anacreontics
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1720
PLACE OF BIRTH Budissin (today Bautzen )
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1797
Place of death Goerlitz