Ernst Zinn (philologist)

Ernst Zinn (born January 26, 1910 in Berlin ; † February 24, 1990 in Tübingen ) was a German classical philologist who worked as a professor at the universities of Saarbrücken (1951–1956) and Tübingen (1956–1978).

Life

Ernst Richard August Zinn was the son of the internist and professor of medicine Wilhelm Zinn (1869–1943). From the summer semester 1929 he studied classical philology, German literature and history at the universities of Freiburg (until 1930), Kiel (summer semester 1930), Heidelberg (summer semester 1931) and Munich (winter semester 1930/31 and from winter semester 1931/32), where he In 1936 Rudolf Pfeiffer did his doctorate with a thesis on the word accent in the lyrical verses of the Roman poet Horace . He passed the state examination in 1937. In 1938 he went to Berlin University as an assistant to Johannes Stroux (who had also been his academic teacher) .

Zinn had to interrupt his research work during the Second World War . He was used as a naval officer ( sea ​​captain ). In March 1945 he was released from front duty due to a serious wound (shot through the neck). He returned to Berlin and completed his habilitation there that same year; shortly afterwards he went to the University of Hamburg as a private lecturer . Here he was appointed adjunct professor in 1950. In 1951, Zinn went to the newly founded University of Saarland as a visiting professor , where he was appointed full professor and chair holder that same year. His chair description was Professor of Classical Philology with consideration of comparative literary history . Just five years later, in 1956, he moved to the University of Tübingen as a full professor of Classical Philology and Comparative Literature . His colleagues included the Graecist Wolfgang Schadewaldt (1950–1968), the philologist and religious scholar Hildebrecht Hommel (1955–1964) and the literary scholar and writer Walter Jens (1950–1988), who in 1963 received the first nationwide chair for general rhetoric. From 1956 Zinn was a liaison professor at the German National Academic Foundation in Tübingen . In 1961, he turned down an offer at the Free University of Berlin . In 1978 he retired , but remained active as a researcher until his death.

Ernst Zinn had been married to the chamber singer Walburga Hedwig Elisabeth Gaethgens since 1938 . The Germanist Marlene Rall (* 1940) is his daughter.

A significant part of the estate is in the Tübingen University Library (shelf mark: Mn 7).

Services

The combination of modern literary methods with those of textual criticism , archeology , exegesis and linguistics was characteristic of Ernst Zinn's scientific working method . He dealt not only with ancient literature, but also with modern poetry. Even before he was well known as a classical philologist, he became widely known as a Germanist through his work on Rainer Maria Rilke , with whom he had been working since he was 14 . In 1951, Rilke's correspondence with Marie von Thurn und Taxis appeared in two volumes, and from 1955 all of Rilke's works were published by the Frankfurt Insel-Verlag. Even many decades later, Zinn's work was respected; an annotated Rilke edition from 1996 was based on his work.

Zinn was personally acquainted with the writers Rudolf Kassner , Rudolf Borchardt and Rudolf Alexander Schröder ; he advised Schröder on his translation of Horace . His lifelong commitment to the literature of the 20th century was rewarded in 1971 with his election to the German Academy for Language and Poetry and in 1989 with the award of the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class.

As a classical philologist, Zinn dealt with wide areas of ancient literature. His focus was on the field of Latin studies , especially with the Roman poets Horace , Virgil and Ovid as well as with the poets of the Silver Latinity . Zinn also published several essays on the late antique poets, specialist writers and church fathers. His fundamental book Der Wortakzent in der Lyrischen Versen des Horace (Munich 1940), in which he also laid down insights into Roman music, is of particular importance for both ancient and modern metrics . The musical also played an important role in Zinn's academic teaching. His students included Michael von Albrecht , Wilfried Barner , Hubert Cancik , Eberhard Heck , Ulrich Ott , Ernst A. Schmidt , Wilfried Stroh , GN Knauer and Günther Wille .

literature

Obituaries and tributes

• Michael von Albrecht : Ernst Zinn †. In: Gnomon . Volume 63, 1991, pp. 78-80 (with picture).
• Hubert Cancik : In memory of Ernst Zinn. In: German Academy for Language and Poetry: Yearbook 1990. Munich 1991, pp. 145–147.
• Eberhard Heck : Ernst Zinn (1910–1990). In: Eikasmos . 4, 1993, pp. 393-402.
• Ulrich Ott : Ernst Zinn: Between Art and Philology. Öhningen 2010.
• Rudolf Rieks : Wolfgang Schadewaldt (1900–1974) and Ernst Zinn (1910–1990). In: Eikasmos. 4, 1993, pp. 323-326.
• Ernst A. Schmidt : Ernst Zinn (1910–1990). In: Eikasmos. 4, 1993, pp. 403-404.

Lexicon article

• Dieter Wuttke: Zinn, Ernst. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 3: R-Z. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 2105-2107.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Zinn in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wilt Aden Schröder : Biogram of Ernst Zinn in the scholarly historical prosopography of the Teuchos Center

Individual evidence

1. ^ Advertisement in Gnomon , Volume 23 (1951), p. 120.
2. ^ Advertisement in Gnomon , Volume 23 (1951), p. 408.
3. ^ [1] Federal Archives, Central Database of Legacies. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Albrecht (1991) 79.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Albrecht (1991) 78.
6. ↑ Alexander Menden: Darkening. Accessed July 30, 2020 .