Daniel Casper von Lohenstein

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Daniel Casper von Lohenstein in the year of death 1683

Daniel Casper (also: Daniel Caspar), from 1670 Casper von Lohenstein (born January 25, 1635 in Nimptsch , Duchy of Brieg ; †  April 28, 1683 in Breslau ) was a German lawyer , diplomat , translator , poet of the Silesian Baroque and one of the Main representative of the Second Silesian School of Poetry .

family

The Casper or Caspar (Latin: "Caspari") family came from the Duchy of Brieg.

Daniel Casper was the son of the imperial duty, excise and beer gradient collector Johann (Hans) Casper (* around 1602; † January 28, 1672 in Nimptsch), councilor and city bailiff of Nimptsch, and the Susanna skull of Greiffenstein (1612– 1652). Father Hans received a letter of coat of arms in 1642 and was raised to the hereditary imperial nobility on July 17, 1670 with the addition of "von Lohenstein".

Daniel Casper was born in 1635 in the princely castle at Nimptsch, to which his parents had withdrawn during the Thirty Years' War , and died in 1683 of a stroke in Breslau.

He married on October 30, 1657 in Breslau Elisabeth Herrmann († 1708 in Czettritz near Landsberg an der Warthe , Mark Brandenburg ), the daughter of Caspar Herrmann, bailiff of the estate of the city council of Breslau.

Life

youth

After initial private lessons from the headmaster in Nimptsch, his father sent him to Breslau, where Casper attended the Magdalenen School from 1642 to 1651, which had been elevated to a grammar school ( Maria Magdalenen grammar school ) in 1643 . The focus of the lessons was the philological and speaking training. As an eleven-year-old schoolboy , he used ancient examples to debate the qualifications required of a nobleman. At the age of fifteen he wrote his first tragedy, Ibrahim , which was also performed. Lohenstein was friends with the baroque poet Heinrich Mühlpfort .

After graduating from high school, Casper had to leave Breslau as there was no university there. At the University of Leipzig he studied with Benedikt Carpzov (1595–1666), the founder of German criminal law , and at the University of Tübingen with Wolfgang Adam Lauterbach (1618–1678), to whom he presented his disputation on June 6, 1655 ( Disputatio Juridica De Voluntate ).

Before he finished his studies, he attended the penultimate Reichstag in Regensburg in 1654 .

After completing his studies, in June 1655, he went on an educational trip that was customary at the time , initially to royal courts in Germany, but also to Switzerland, as well as to Leiden , Utrecht and Vienna . Because of the rampant plague , he could not travel to Italy . He spent some time in Hungary , where he came into contact with the Turkish - Oriental culture .

Called back by his father, he was hit by a severe storm on his way home by ship, in which, even in distress, he experienced the sinking of thirteen ships - an experience that he could not forget in his entire life. After returning home, he settled as a lawyer in Breslau, where he married in 1657 at the age of 22.

Councilor in Oels

In 1665 he was the product of his poetic side hours, the tragedy Agrippina , the Duchess Louise of Legnica-Brieg-Wohlau dedicated, born Princess of Anhalt-Dessau , the reigning princess-mother Elisabeth Marie him in 1668 as Councilor for Oels summoned. As a scholar, Casper was the advisor to Duchess Luise and also helped her with the artistic design and construction of the princely crypt in the Liegnitz St. John's Church. Duke Christian tried to bring him to his court as a secret councilor , but Casper preferred to return to Breslau in 1670, where a promising career lured him.

Even as a schoolboy he had come and gone in the patrician circles of the Wroclaw city republic. Now the councilor Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau (1616–1679) stood up for him, whom Casper greatly admired as a poet and person - as his famous funeral address of 1679 attests to this. In addition, Senior Syndic Peter Muck von Muckendorff abdicated in 1670 to take over the presidency of the Duchy of Lauenburg , and that the second Syndic, Andreas von Assig, was appointed to his position as Senior Syndic. In this way Daniel Casper could be appointed as in-house counsel in place of Assig.

Legal counsel and diplomat in Wroclaw

This gave him one of the most important and best-paid offices in the city. The elevation of his family to the nobility a few weeks later, which earned him the addition of "von Lohenstein", was more likely to apply to him than to his father. In 1675 Assig had to give up his office due to illness and Lohenstein took his place as senior syndic and held this office for eight years until his death.

The situation in Silesia after the Thirty Years' War was strongly influenced by counter-reformation efforts . When an imperial edict ordered the removal of all Protestant school teachers, the danger of an occupation of Wroclaw by imperial troops led by General Kop was so great that the Wroclaw Council sent Lohenstein to Vienna for negotiations. The diplomatic skills of the man who was trained as a man of the world actually succeeded in persuading Emperor Leopold to drop his demand. The city made even more use of Lohenstein's high diplomatic skills and sent him on legation trips. In more ways than one he has proven himself as a diplomat and politician and achieved a lot as a lawyer.

Gut Kittelau around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

Daniel Casper von Lohenstein owned a number of goods. In 1673 he acquired Kittelau from Duchess Luise von Brieg and inherited Reisau and Roschkowitz from Tobias von Kleindienst in the same year. As a recognized poet, ennobled senior syndic and landowner , he was at the height of his life in the 1670s . In 1675 he was appointed Imperial Councilor , who increasingly turned to the Habsburg positions .

Act

It is amazing what he has achieved as a poet alongside his profession as a lawyer and diplomat. The extremely productive Daniel Casper von Lohenstein was best known as the author of baroque tragedies that were influenced by French classicism . Along with Gryphius , he was the most important German-speaking playwright of the Baroque.

His novel Großmüthiger Feldherr Arminius , which appeared in two volumes in 1689 and 1690 and comprised around 3,100 pages, was a highlight of baroque novel art . The starting point is the Varus Battle , in which nine Roman legions under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus are destroyed by Germanic tribes under the leadership of Arminius . In the first part of the novel, following the example of Heliodorus , only prehistory are told, in the second part the plot is continued chronologically until the happy ending. In accordance with the poetological guidelines of the courtly historical novel , the presentation is less influenced by the realistic representation of historical events than by the elaboration of principles of historical philosophy that are valid over time . On the first pages it is emphasized that the consequences of a certain political action “do not depend on the justice of the cause / not on the boldness of a heartfelt undertaking / but on the immutable law of inexorable fate”.

His poetry was published partly in individual prints, partly in collections of poetry (Blumen, 1680).

Aftermath

Lohenstein's works were read and reissued into the middle of the 18th century, Christian Thomasius and Moses Mendelssohn were among his admirers. After that, its effect ceased, and an edition of the work planned for 1745 was no longer published. The rapid change in the history of style that began at the end of the 17th century had led to some harsh criticism from literary critics such as Johann Jakob Bodmer , Johann Jakob Breitinger and Johann Christoph Gottsched , which apparently had a lasting effect on the reception of his work.

First and foremost, the excessive use of metaphors and other figurative language figures as well as Lohenstein's pomp with extensive polyhistorical erudition were criticized. An accusation that Joseph von Eichendorff later took up in order to classify the Arminius novel in the “maddened real encyclopaedias” (meaning the obese novels) of the Baroque. It was only when the aesthetic norms of the Classical and Romantic periods lost their authority at the beginning of the 20th century that more positive judgments became perceptible again in literary criticism.

Productive points of contact can only be found in the 1970s with Hubert Fichte , who in his staging of Lohenstein's tragedy prepared the suggestive expressiveness that is inherent in these pieces. The scenes of torture and atrocity were the main focus.

Attempts to bring Lohenstein's dramas back onto the stage were made repeatedly between 1978 and 1985, but had no broader impact.

In 1978, at the Kölner Schauspiel, in 2002, in Recklinghausen, and in 2014, at the Staatstheater Mainz, theater directors dealt with Lohenstein's tragedy for the first time.

Works (selection)

translation

  • Lorentz Gratian's state = wise Catholic Ferdinand , Jena 1676. [Balthasar Gracian: El Político Don Fernando et Católico , 1640.]

expenditure

  • All works . Historical-critical edition. Edited by Lothar Mundt, Wolfgang Neuber and Thomas Rahn. de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2005ff.
  • African tragedies . Edited by Klaus Günther Just. Hiersemann. Stuttgart 1957. (Library of the Literary Society in Stuttgart. 294.)
  • Roman tragedies . Edited by Klaus Günther Just. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1955. (Library of the Literary Society in Stuttgart. 293.)
  • Turkish tragedies . Edited by Klaus Günther Just. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1953. (Library of the Literary Society in Stuttgart. 292.)
  • Lohenstein's Agrippina . Edited by Hubert Fichte. Preface by Bernhard Asmuth. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1978. ISBN 3 462 01274 6
  • Lyrica. In addition to an appendix: occasional poems in a separate tradition . Ed. And with an afterword vers. by Gerhard Spellerberg. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1992. (Rara ex bibliothecis Silesiis. 1.)

literature

  • Bernhard Asmuth : Daniel Casper von Lohenstein . Metzler, Stuttgart 1971. (Metzler Collection. Vol. 97.)
  • Bernhard Asmuth: Lohenstein and Tacitus. A source-critical interpretation of the Nero tragedies and the "Arminius" novel . Metzler, Stuttgart 1971. (Germanistic Treatises. Vol. 36.)
  • Wolfgang Bender: Lohenstein's "Arminius". Comments on the “Höfisch-Historischen” novel , in: Reception and Production between 1570 and 1730. Festschrift Günther Weydt, Bern and Munich 1972, pp. 381–410.
  • Thomas Borgstedt: Imperial idea and love ethics. A reconstruction of Lohenstein's Arminius novel . (Studies on German Literature 121). Niemeyer, Tübingen 1992. ISBN 3-484-18121-4
  • Thomas Diecks: Virtue and Doom. Investigations into the tragedy 'Epicharis' Daniel Caspers von Lohenstein . National Library of Canada, Ottawa 1985. ISBN 0-315-22684-6
  • Alexander Döll: "With feeling hands and seeing eyes". Sensualism and enlightenment in Lohenstein's Arminius novel. (Literatura. Scientific contributions to modernity and its history 40). Ergon, Baden-Baden 2018. (Zugl .: Diss. Phil. Würzburg 2016) ISBN 978-3-95650-392-4
  • Gerhard Dünnhaupt : Daniel Casper von Lohenstein (1635–1683) . In: Personal bibliographies on Baroque prints . Volume 4, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1991. ISBN 3-7772-9122-6 , pp. 2589-2606 (list of works and references)
  • Gerald Gillespie / Gerhard Spellerberg (ed.): Studies on the work of Daniel Caspers von Lohenstein. On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of his death. Rodopi, Amsterdam 1983. (Daphnis 1983, no. 2-3.)
  • Adolf Haslinger : Epic Forms in the Courtly Baroque Novel , Munich 1970.
  • Dieter Kafitz: Lohenstein's Arminius. Disputatory procedure and teaching content in a novel between the Baroque and the Enlightenment . Metzler, Stuttgart 1970. (Germanistic Treatises. Vol. 32.)
  • Hans Georg Kemper: Wisdom through the 'flowers' (Lohenstein) , in: ders .: German poetry of the early modern times, vol. 4: Barock-Humanismus, Tübingen 2006, p. 223 ff.
  • Johann Casper von Lohenstein : Kurtz Entworffener Lebens-Lauff des blessed Autoris , in: Daniel Caspers von Lohenstein Ibrahim Sultan Drama / Agrippina Trauerspiel / Epicharis Trauerspiel / And other poetic poems / so still with the approval of S. Autoris, as well as the same Lebens-Lauff and Epicediis, ready for printing, Breslau bey Esaiä Fellgiebels Sel. Wittib and Erben 1701, p. 611 ff. ( Http://digitale.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/vd18/content/pageview/5762036 )
  • Alberto Martino: Daniel Casper von Lohenstein. History of its reception. Volume I: 1661-1800 , trans. v. Heribert Streicher, Tübingen 1978.
  • Reinhart Meyer calcus : lust and cruelty. Doctrine of affect and representation of affect in Lohenstein's drama using the example of 'Agrippina . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1986 (Palaestra. Vol. 279.)
  • Marie-Thérèse Mourey (ed.): About Lohenstein's Sophonisbe 1669/1680 . In: Wolfenbütteler Barocknachrichten 37 (2010), H. 1/2.
  • Conrad Müller: Contributions to the life and poetry of Daniel Caspers von Lohenstein , Breslau 1882.
  • Cornelia Plume: Heroines in the Gender Order. Reality projections by Daniel Casper von Lohenstein and the 'Querelle des Femmes . Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 1996. (Results of women's studies. Vol. 42.)
  • Oskar Pusch : The Breslau city councilors in the period from 1241 to 1741 . Dortmund 1988. Vol. 3, p. 44ff. (Publications of the Research Center for East Central Europe at the University of Dortmund / Series B. Vol. 38.) ISBN 3-923293-25-9
  • Erich Schmidt :  Daniel Casper von Lohenstein . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 120-124. (1884)
  • Gerhard Spellerberg: Doom and History. Investigations into the tragedy and the Arminius novel Daniel Caspers von Lohenstein . Gehlen, Bad Homburg v. d. H. 1970.
  • Elida M. Szarota : Lohenstein's Arminius as a time novel. View of the late baroque . Francke, Bern 1970.
  • Peter Ukena:  Lohenstein, Daniel von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 124 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Max Wehrli : The baroque image of history in Lohenstein's Arminius . Huber, Frauenfeld 1938. (Paths to Poetry. Vol. 31.)
  • Adalbert Wichert: Literature, Rhetoric and Jurisprudence in the 17th Century. Daniel Casper von Lohenstein and his work. An exemplary study. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1991. (Studies and texts on the social history of literature. Vol. 32.)
  • Wolf Wucherpfennig: Wisdom and World Order. The problem of political action in Lohenstein's Arminius . Becksmann, Freiburg i. Br. 1973. (German Literature and Language Studies / Series A. Vol. 2.)

Web links

Commons : Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Daniel Casper von Lohenstein  - Sources and full texts

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The surname of the poet is "Casper" or "Caspar", after the ennoblement (1670) of his father correspondingly "Casper / Caspar von Lohenstein" (from the river Lohe, which flowed through a perforated stone on his father's estate), the first name only "Daniel"; because of the irritating ambiguity of the name "Casper", even encyclopedias and archives often mistakenly regard it as a given name. Since the end of the 17th century, Daniel Casper von Lohenstein has often been called simply "Lohenstein", although strictly speaking this is not a surname. This linguistic usage has remained in use in Lohenstein research, provided that chronological accuracy is not important.
  2. ^ Johannes Grünewald: Contributions to Silesian presbyterology from the church books of Nimptsch in the 17th century . In: Yearbook for Silesian Church History . tape 59 , 1980, pp. 162–197, here p. 192 (information on the date of death and year of birth of the father).
  3. ↑ Lohenstein did not yet know that Balthasar Gracian published his works, with only one exception, under the name of his brother, cf. http://balthasar-gracian.virtusens.de/balthasar_gracian_bibliographie.php?werknr=623 .
personal data
SURNAME Lohenstein, Daniel Casper from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caspar, Daniel; Casper, Daniel; Caspari, Daniel; Kasper, Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet of the Baroque era and one of the main representatives of the Second Silesian School of Poetry
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1635
PLACE OF BIRTH Nimptsch , Duchy of Brieg
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1683
Place of death Wroclaw