Friedrich Wagenfeld

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Friedrich Wagenfeld (born January 3, 1810 in Bremen , † August 26, 1846 in Bremen) was a German philologist and writer.

biography

Wagenfeld was the second son of a grocer . Talented in languages, he attended the secondary school in Bremen. He studied theology , philosophy and philology at the University of Göttingen from 1829 to 1832 , but he also attended oriental and Greek lectures. After completing his studies, he worked as a private tutor in Brinkum near Bremen from 1832 .

There he claimed that he was in possession of a manuscript found in a Portuguese monastery which contained the work of the Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon in Philon's Greek translation. In 1836 he published an excerpt from the manuscript with a foreword by Georg Friedrich Grotefend , and the complete manuscript was published a year later. In the meantime, however, doubts have arisen about the authenticity of the manuscript. Wagenfeld admitted to having invented the handwriting himself with the help of a high school teacher in Bremen, and that it was “only aiming at a mystification of the learned world”. He succeeded, even learned orientalists like Karl Otfried Müller were initially deceived.

Hoetger monument of the seven lazy people, Böttcherstraße

His linguistic talent, which showed in the creation of the forgery, gave hope that he would turn to more serious work, but he fell into a drinking life from which he could no longer be torn. He published only a few larger works: in 1845 Bremen's Volkssagen , a collection of traditions and legends, some of which may have been freely invented by him. The story of The Seven Lazy goes back to him. In 1845 the sketches from Bremer Volksleben also appeared . In 1846 the Bremen war journeys on land and sea appeared . He also wrote newspaper articles and edited the Bremer Unterhaltungsblatt of the Kaiser bookstore until his untimely death.

Honors

  • Friedrich-Wagenfeld-Straße in the Bremen Neustadt was named after him.

Works

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Friedrich Wagenfeld  - Sources and full texts