Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau

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Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau

Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau (born March 15, 1745 in Bergedorf , † February 13, 1827 in Lüneburg ) was a German writer and important translator; his most important work is a high German version of Reineke Fuchs .

life and work

Soltau was initially a businessman and was involved in various commercial transactions in St. Petersburg , most recently in that of the Meybohm brothers. He had an excellent knowledge of various languages ​​and, in addition to his business, devoted himself intensively to the literature of his time. From 1798 he lived as a wealthy private citizen in Lüneburg and in the following years appeared in public with highly acclaimed translations and his own literary works. In 1801 the University of Wittenberg awarded him a doctorate, presumably for his achievements as a translator. His own work, consisting of poems, descriptions of Russia and the collaboration on dictionaries, was seen as less important. Soltau died in 1827 as a councilor in his city.

In 1769 Soltau was accepted into the Freemasons' Union in St. Petersburg. In Lüneburg he joined the local Masonic Lodge Selene to the three towers . Between 1810 and 1814 he was the lodge as a master of the chair in front.

Carsten Wilhelm Soltau was his half-brother and the painter Hermann Wilhelm Soltau was his nephew.

In 1949 Soltaustraße in Hamburg-Bergedorf was named after Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau.

Translations

Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau provided translations of Samuel Butler's Hudibras (published in Riga in 1787, with emphasis in 1798), Cervantes' Don Quixote (Königsberg 1800; 1825) and Instructive Stories (1801) and Boccaccio's Decameron (Berlin 1801). Soltau's most valuable publication is his High German translation of Reineke der Fuchs (Berlin 1803), which was further published in 1823 and 1852 to 1856 and which he also translated into English in 1826. He is also the author of a history of the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese in the Orient, from 1415 to 1539 following the guidance of the Asia des João de Barros .

literature

  • Friedrich Brandes :  Soltau, Dietrich Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, p. 586 f.
  • Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau . In: Olaf Matthes, Bardo Metzger (Hrsg.): Bergedorfer Personenlexikon . Hamburg 2003, pp. 188f. ISBN 3-935987-03-X
  • John L. Flood: Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau and his translations of the "Reynke de Vos": a contribution to the study of German-English literary relations around 1800 . In: Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 45 (1996) Sp. 283–336
  • Bardo Metzger: Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau - Between reason and passion. In: Neuer Schlosskalender 9, Hamburg-Bergedorf 2010, pp. 13-18
  • Bardo Metzger (Ed.): Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau - A citizen of the world from Bergedorf. Hamburg 2011
  • Johann Heinrich Ramberg / Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau: Reineke Fuchs - Reynard the Fox. 31 original drawings and newly colored etchings with excerpts from the German translation of the epic in the popular style v. Soltau | 31 original drawings and newly colored etchings with excerpts from the English translation of the burlesque poem by Soltau. Edited by Waltraud Maierhofer. VDG, Weimar 2016. ISBN 978-3-89739-854-2

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rita Bake : A Memory of the City. Streets, squares, bridges named after women and men , Volume 3, as of December 2017, p. 1101 ( PDF file )
  2. ↑ Digitized Reynard the Fox (1826, translated from the Low – German Original by DW Soltau )
  3. ↑ Friedrich Vieweg, Braunschweig 1821, 4 parts ( digitized: 1, 2 , 3, 4 )

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Soltau, Dietrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1745
PLACE OF BIRTH Bergedorf
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1827
Place of death Luneburg