Franz Horn (writer)

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Franz Horn at the age of 34 (around 1815)

Franz Christoph Horn (born July 30, 1781 in Braunschweig , † July 19, 1837 in Berlin ) was a German writer, literary historian and Shakespeare connoisseur.

life and work

origin

Franz Horn had five siblings, three brothers and two sisters. He himself was the youngest child. His parents were the Brunswick chief paymaster and general hospital administrator Ernst Wilhelm Horn (1732–1812) and his wife Sophie Dorothea Meyerhoff (1737–1787), a daughter of the Hanoverian captain of the Guard Theophil Meyerhoff and Sophie Margarethe Grupen. His brother Ernst (1774–1848) became a professor at the Medical-Surgical Military Academy in Berlin in 1806 and, in 1821, professor of medicine at the university. His sister Henriette married Karl Franz Christian Wagner (1760–1847), a professor of classical philology in Marburg. He still had two important nephews, the physician Wilhelm von Horn (1803–1871) and the Oberpräsident Karl von Horn (1807–1889).

Creative years

Horn attended the Braunschweig Katharineum and the Collegium Carolinum . After graduating from school, he stayed at home for the time being, where he wrote a number of dramas, which he published anonymously in Braunschweig in 1799. However, his talent as a playwright was very modest. From Easter 1799 he studied law in Jena, but did not like it and went to the University of Leipzig in the autumn of the following year, where he began studying history, philosophy and aesthetics. While he was still studying, which he obtained in 1802 with a doctorate to become Dr. phil. graduated, he published three novels and several translations of Seneca's tragedies .

After completing his studies, he returned to Braunschweig for a short time, where he conceived his fourth novel, the two-volume work Henrico (1804/1805). He decided to become a teacher and went to Berlin, where he, supported by the Prussian school reformer Friedrich Gedike , held a position as an extraordinary teacher at the grammar school of the Gray Monastery from 1803 . Horn joined poetic and intellectual circles that regarded Goethe and Schiller in literature and Hegel and Schelling as leading figures in philosophy . As a result, he was in contact with numerous leading figures in intellectual life in the age of idealism and romanticism , including Johann Gottlieb Fichte , August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel , Novalis , Ludwig Tieck and Heinrich von Kleist . A close friend grew up in Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , for whom Horn also worked twice as editor.

In the winter of 1804/1805 Horn gave public lectures in Berlin on German poetry and eloquence, which aroused great interest because of his innovative ideas and therefore went to press in 1805. Achim von Arnim , who had attended Horn's lecture on Andreas Gryphius , praised the qualities of the speaker in a letter to Clemens Brentano , who was "infinitely more imaginative and instructive" than Johann Joachim Winckelmann and who also gave a completely free speech.

Horn's application for the professorship for aesthetics and history at the University of Erlangen during this time was unsuccessful, perhaps also because it was thwarted by Friedrich Nicolai , who considered Horn to be a troublemaker with dangerous ideological and aesthetic principles. At the suggestion and mediation of his eldest brother Friedrich Horn, Senator in Bremen , he instead took the position as the third teacher at the local Lyceum. Before he left Berlin, Franz Horn became engaged to Rosalie Gedike, the daughter of his now deceased sponsor Friedrich Gedike. The marriage of the two in Berlin in 1806 resulted in a son and a daughter, who both died early.

Plagued by a serious illness at a young age, which is identified in depictions as either gout , rheumatism or simply “a nervous disease ”, he turned his back on Bremen in 1809 because he could not stand the local climate and went back to Berlin. The Lyceum held his position open for a year and a half in the hope that he could return, but Horn even had to give up his work as a high school teacher altogether. Other possibilities of regulated employment were now also closed to him. As a result, he only gave private lessons and otherwise devoted himself to his literary work. During this time he published biographies about the Great Elector and Frederick I , which were in the context of the patriotic literature of the time of the Wars of Liberation . He also wrote "historical paintings" about a number of Roman emperors, including Tiberius and Nero , depictions with a strong literary influence.

On April 23, 1816, the 200th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death , Horn's adaptation of Hamlet in the translation by August Wilhelm Schlegel was premiered in Berlin , for which Horn had also composed a prologue, the result of a collaboration with the Berlin theater director, the had been launched in the previous year. The success of the production encouraged Horn to intensify his long-standing preoccupation with the work of the English poet. In the following decade, he presented the results of his studies in the form of lectures that brought a small circle of loyal listeners together during the winter months. Horn later transformed these lectures into written interpretations of Shakespeare's individual plays, which were published in five volumes between 1823 and 1831. Further lectures followed on from his earlier examination of German literary history and were then also published in two volume works (1819–1821 and 1823–1829).

The worsening of his suffering forced him in 1828 to stop the lectures that he loved. His production as an author has been limited for a long time, also due to illness, to shorter works - novellas and articles in magazines, which he was often no longer able to write himself but dictated to his wife. The leading literary magazines of the time brought him articles on the subjects of literature, aesthetics and theater. In 1816, Horn's most famous literary work, the novella The Eternal Jew , appeared for the first time in Fouqué 's women's pocketbook .

Death and grave

The not preserved grave monument in the Dorotheenstädtisch-Friedrichswerder cemetery

At the beginning of 1837, Horn developed a dangerous hydrothorax , which got worse despite the intensive care of several medical professionals in the family. Franz Horn died eleven days before his 56th birthday on July 19, 1837 in Berlin. Among those who had looked after him to the last were his wife and mother-in-law as well as the great admirer Caroline Bernstein . She then set a "biographical monument" for her friend, but it did not appear until 1839, after her own death.

The funeral service for Horn, led by Friedrich August Pischon , took place on July 21 in the deceased's apartment in the presence of many friends and students. Subsequently, the burial took place in the cemetery of the Dorotheenstädtischen and Friedrichswerder parishes on Chausseestrasse . The grave monument erected later, a zippus made of gray marble with multiple bases, had a marble tondo created by Christian Friedrich Tieck with the portrait of the dead person in profile on the east-facing front .

The grave was on the old Friedrichswerder part of the cemetery, which was leveled in 1887 in the course of the widening of today's Hannoversche Straße. While the neighboring graves of Hegel, Fichte and Hufeland were moved to the Dorotheenstädtische part of the cemetery and have been preserved there, Franz Horn's final resting place was lost.

reception

The complete works of Franz Horn, both his literary and his literary and aesthetic writings, have largely been forgotten. This fate is already hinted at in a - thoroughly benevolent - necrology that appeared after his death in 1837, in which the less than sixty-year-old deceased is characterized as a “representative of a past time”. The early apotheosis , which Caroline Bernstein conceded to him as early as the year after his death in the form of a hagiographic biography, stands there lonely and can only be understood appropriately in the context of her own, illness-shaped biography. Only one other book-length work on the life and work of Franz Horn is available, namely the print version of a dissertation by Lisel Grützmacher from 1927, which Horn typically selected as the subject of study for questions of change in literary taste.

Even contemporaries were very harsh about Horn's importance as an author. An example is Franz Grillparzer in 1823:

“No literature can show a writer who would have made it so far in the art of always striking alongside the truth as Franz Horn. If you look at some of his writings, e.g. If, for example, the commentary on Shakespeare is tempted to be annoyed with him, an innocent worthlessness that has spread throughout all of his work makes you up with him unnoticed. Through his writings he has neither used nor harmed, pushed nothing out of place and put nothing in place; its positivity in the literary world is like that of Loches in the physical world: it is as if he had never written it. "

- Franz Grillparzer : Studies on German Literature

Rudolf von Gottschall sees a sweetish-pious element also present in Fouqué as heightened “to perfect manner” in Horn, but “without any legal force”. In addition, Horn flirted with his own illness in all of his writings. Despite existing qualities, he sees Horn's novels "deprived of any pleasing effect due to their sweet, hazy manner and sentimental art reflections." Horn's Shakespeare interpretations are an attempt to pull the great poet "down to the level of weak romanticism". Gottschall only admits a certain value to Horn's contributions to German literature - as hard work. Hugo Schramm-Macdonald fully shares this judgment in the ADB , criticizing Horn's lack of groundedness and the “breadth, overabundance and sentimentality of the reflections” in his novels. Gerd Heinemann sees in the NDB in the religious-pietistic influence a decisive reason why the reception of Horn's literary-historical writings in posterity is so low. He emphasizes the heterogeneous character of Horn's work, in which influences from Sturm und Drang , classical and romanticism stand side by side.

Heinrich Heine Horn set up a - unflattering - literary monument . In Atta Troll he lets him take part in a nightly hunt for the great dead of the past, but only in the role of Sancho Panza for Shakespeare's Don Quixote :

"In the dull prayer expression,
On the pious white sleepyhead,
I recognized it by the fear of soul
Our old friend Franz Horn. [...]
When it goes at a gallop sometimes
The great William looks mockingly
To the poor commentator
Who follows him in the donkey's trot,
Totally passed out, tightly convulsing
To the saddle button of the smoke
But in death as in life
Faithfully following his author. "
( Atta Troll , Caput XVIII)

Works

Literary

  • Urns of grief. Dramas. Published anonymously. Hanover 1799.
  • The fall of Switzerland. A tragedy in five acts. Published anonymously. Leipzig 1800.
  • Guiscardo the poet, or: the ideal. Novel. Leipzig 1801.
  • Fantastic paintings. Stories and poems. Leipzig 1801.
  • The lonely, or: the way of death. Novel. Leipzig 1801.
  • Victor's pilgrimages. Novel. Penig 1802.
  • The spirit of peace. Fantastic painting. Novella. Züllichau 1804.
  • Henrico . Novel in two volumes. Poznan 1804/1805.
  • Octavio of Burgos . Novel, only first part published. Tubingen 1805.
  • The dream of love . Novella. Berlin 1806.
  • Otto. Novel. Bremen 1810.
  • Fight and victory. Novel in two volumes. Bremen 1811.
  • Life and love. Novella. Berlin 1817.
  • The poets, or: the ideal. Novel in three volumes. Berlin 1817-1820.
  • Novellas. Two volumes. Berlin 1819/1820.
  • Love and marriage. Novel. Berlin 1820.
  • Collected poems. Berlin 1820.
  • May and September. Collection of short stories and poems. Two volumes. Berlin 1833.

Non-fiction

  • About Carlo Gozzi's dramatic poetry, especially his Turandot and Schiller's adaptation of this play. Penig 1803.
  • Suggestions for friends of poetry. An appendix to the paperback Luna. Züllichau 1804.
  • History and criticism of German poetry and eloquence. Berlin 1805.
  • Life and science, art and religion. Philosophical Fragments. Berlin 1807.
  • Friedrich Gedike. A biography. In addition to a selection from Gedike's left, mostly unprinted papers. Berlin 1808.
  • Nero. Historical painting. Leipzig 1810.
  • Tiberius. Historical painting. Leipzig 1811.
  • Otho, Galba, Vitellius. Historical paintings. Berlin 1912.
  • The beautiful literature of Germany during the eighteenth century. Two volumes. Berlin 1812/1813.
  • The life of Friedrich Wilhelm the Great, Elector of Brandenburg . Berlin 1814.
  • Friedrich the Third, Elector of Brandenburg. Berlin 1816.
  • Outlines of the history and criticism of the beautiful literature of Germany, during the years 1790 to 1818. Two volumes. Berlin 1819-1821.
  • The poetry and eloquence of the Germans, from Luther's time to the present. Four volumes. Berlin 1822-1829.
  • Poet characters and biographical sketches of mixed genres. Berlin 1830.
  • Shakespeare's plays explained. Five volumes. Leipzig 1823–1831.
  • Fortepiano. Small cheerful fonts. Short essays. Three volumes. Iserlohn 1831/1832.

Translations

  • Thyestes. A tragedy by Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Translation with introduction. Penig 1802.
  • The Trojans. Tragedy of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Translation with introduction. Penig 1803.

Miscellaneous

  • Latona. Conversation pamphlets in two volumes. Berlin 1811/1812.
  • Kind fonts for kind readers. Two volumes. Nuremberg 1817–1820.
  • German evening entertainment. Stories and short biographies. Berlin 1822.
  • Elevation and reassurance. Stories and short biographies. Berlin 1824.
  • Wine and oil. Stories, characteristics, outlines and pictures. Dresden 1836.

editor

  • Luna. A paperback on the year. With many own contributions. Leipzig u. a. 1804/1805.
  • Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué : Charlemagne birth and youth. A knight's song. With a foreword by Franz Horn. Nuremberg 1816.
  • Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué: The pilgrimage. A tragedy. Nuremberg 1816.
  • Christoph Martin Wieland : Letters to Sophie von La Roche . With a foreword and comments by Franz Horn. Berlin 1820.

Gustav Schwab and Friedrich Förster published a selection from his estate under the title: Psyche (3 volumes, Leipzig 1841).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Caroline Bernstein : Franz Horn. A biographical monument. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1839. pp. 115–116.
  2. ↑ Gerd Heinemann:  Horn, Franz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , pp. 627 f. ( Digitized version ).
  3. ^ Kurt Hoffmeister: Braunschweigs literati. 140 author portraits . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2016, ISBN 978-3-7412-4042-3 . Pp. 96-97.
  4. ^ Heinemann: Horn, Franz .
  5. ↑ Hoffmeister: Braunschweig's literati. P. 97.
  6. ↑ Allgemeine Prussische Staatszeitung , July 24, 1837, p. 4. Heinemann: Horn, Franz .
  7. ^ Hugo Schramm-Macdonald:  Horn, Franz Christoph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, p. 136 f.
  8. ↑ Achim von Arnim to Clemens Brentano , March 25, 1805. In: Reinhold Steig (edit.): Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano (= Achim von Arnim and those close to him , first volume). Cotta, Stuttgart 1894. pp. 135-137, here p. 137.
  9. ↑ Correspondingly here: Schramm-Macdonald: Horn, Franz Christoph. Heinemann: Horn, Franz.
  10. ↑ Bernstein: Franz Horn. A biographical monument. Pp. 115-116.
  11. ^ Franz Christoph Horn, Doctor of Philosophy in Berlin. In: New Nekrolog der Deutschen , 1837. Jg. 15, Volume 2. Voigt, Weimar 1839. P. 715–724, here P. 719. Heinemann: Horn, Franz.
  12. ↑ Allgemeine Prussische Staatszeitung , July 24, 1837, p. 4.
  13. ^ Heinemann: Horn, Franz.
  14. ^ Schramm-Macdonald: Horn, Franz Christoph.
  15. ^ Schramm-Macdonald: Horn, Franz Christoph.
  16. ^ New Nekrolog der Deutschen, 1837. pp. 719–720.
  17. ^ Heinemann: Horn, Franz.
  18. ^ New Nekrolog der Deutschen, 1837. pp. 719–721. Schramm-Macdonald: Horn, Franz Christoph. For a description of the circumstances of Horn's lectures see the contribution of a regular listener: Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué: Ueber Franz Horn's literary lectures in Berlin . In: The partner or leaves for mind and heart. A people's paper. Vol. 8, No. 84, May 26, 1824, pp. 417-418.
  19. ↑ Heinemann: Horn, Franz. Allgemeine Preußische Staatszeitung , July 24, 1837, p. 4. Morgenblatt für educated readers , August 28, 1837, p. 824. New Nekrolog der Deutschen, 1837. pp. 719–723.
  20. ↑ Franz Horn: The Eternal Jew. In: Frauentaschenbuch for the year 1816. Schrag, Nürnberg 1816. P. 102–187.
  21. ↑ Allgemeine Preußische Staatszeitung , July 24, 1837, p. 4. Bernstein: Franz Horn. A biographical monument. Pp. 8-12.
  22. ↑ Allgemeine Preußische Staatszeitung , July 24, 1837, p. 4. Bernstein: Franz Horn. A biographical monument. Pp. 331-333, 403.
  23. ↑ Bernstein: Franz Horn. A biographical monument. P. 332–333, 403. Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , pp. 92, 99.
  24. ^ Morgenblatt für educated readers , August 28, 1837, p. 824.
  25. ↑ Bernstein: Franz Horn. A biographical monument. Schramm-Macdonald: Horn, Franz Christoph.
  26. ↑ Franz Horn, a descendant of Romanticism. Universitas-Verlag, Münster 1928.
  27. ↑ August Sauer (ed.): Grillparzer's complete works in twenty volumes. Volume 18: Studies on German Literature. For your own work. Cotta, Stuttgart and Berlin 1893. p. 90.
  28. ^ Rudolf von Gottschall : The German National Literature of the Nineteenth Century. Presented critically and historically. 6th edition. Trewendt, Breslau 1891. Volume 2, pp. 544-545.
  29. ^ Schramm-Macdonald: Horn, Franz Christoph.
  30. ^ Heinemann: Horn, Franz.
personal data
SURNAME Horn, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Horn, Franz Christoph (full name); Marquard, JG (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and literary historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1781
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1837
Place of death Berlin