Elise Reimarus

Elise Reimarus

Margaretha Elisabeth "Elise" Reimarus (born January 22, 1735 in Hamburg ; † September 2, 1805 there ) was a German writer , educator, translator and salonnière in the Age of Enlightenment .

Life

Elise Reimarus was the daughter of Johanna Friederike and Hermann Samuel Reimarus , who u. a. with works on the instincts of animals and natural religion ( Treatise on the most noble truths of natural religion 1754), as well as the completion and publication of the work of his father-in-law Johann Albert Fabricius , Dio Cassius , became famous. Elises's older brother was Johann Albert Heinrich Reimarus , who later made a name for himself as a doctor, philosopher and follower of his father's work. Elise Reimarus was considered one of the most educated women in Hamburg and was in correspondence with the most important personalities of the Enlightenment , e. B. Moses Mendelssohn , Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Carl Leonhard Reinhold . The poet and educator Caroline Rudolphi was one of her friends.

Elise Reimarus went public with translations from English and French, but also her own works. At times she was the salon lady of the learned and sociable Reimarus circle in Hamburg, which can be considered one of the forerunners of the great salons of the Romantic era . Her active participation in the philosophical and literary debates of the Enlightenment made her “perhaps the most important female personality of the German Enlightenment ”.

Works (selection)

as an author

• individual poems:
  • At the grave of Herr A [ugust] G [ottfried] S [chwalb], from a friend in Hamburg. Hamburg Correspondent 28 February 15, 1777
  • The shepherd and the wise man; from the gay. Small Children's Library , ed. Campe, Vol. 5, 1780, 78–80.
  • Spring comes with all its treasures. (in Oehlke, Lessing and his time. Vol. 2, 1919, 573)
• Cato. A tragedy. (undated; freely based on Joseph Addison ).
• About Gottfried Schwalb's death February 9, 1777. 1777.
• Albert and Lotte on the way to Werther's grave. 1774 (dialogical continuation of The Sorrows of Young Werther ).
• Attempt to explain and simplify the concepts of natural constitutional law.
• Joachim Heinrich Campe : Small children's library. 1778 ff. (Numerous works in this series were by Elise Reimarus, who however remained anonymous).
• Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi : About the teaching of Spinoza in letters to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn . 1785 (contains letters from Elise Reimarus to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi).

as a translator

• Jean-François Marmontel : Friendship put to the test. 1769.
• Voltaire : Zayre. A tragedy in five acts.

literature

• Bertha Badt-Strauss : Elise Reimarus and her contemporaries. A picture from the history of the Enlightenment. Unpublished, undated manuscript, 142 pages.
• Jürgen Overhoff : Reimarus, Elise . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 299-300 .
• Heinrich Sieveking : Elise Reimarus (1735–1805) in the spiritual struggles of her time. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History . Volume 39, 1940, pp. 86-138.
• Almut Spalding: Elise Reimarus (1735-1805), the Muse of Hamburg. A Woman of the German Enlightenment. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-2813-9 .
• Wilhelm Wattenbach : In memory of Lessing. In: New Lusatian Magazine . Volume 38, 1861, ISSN  1439-2712 , pp. 193-231 (also special print; digital copy ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Elise Reimarus in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reinhard MG Nickisch : Letter culture: development and socio-historical significance of the women's letter in the 18th century. In: Gisela Brinker-Gabler (ed.): German literature by women. Volume 1: From the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century. Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-32814-8 , p. 402.