Jörg Wickram

Georg Wickram (* around 1505 in Colmar , † to 1555 / 1560 in Burkheim ( vogtsburg )) was a versatile and productive frühneuhochdeutscher writer . He excelled in writing dramas, prose works and translations.

Life

Jörg Wickram was the illegitimate son of the chairman of the Council of Colmar, Konrad Wickram, and came from a respected patrician family . As an illegitimate son, however, he did not receive a thorough school education and he was denied the right to hold higher municipal offices. At first he was a goldsmith in Colmar , then a painter and bailiff . From around 1530 the first literary works appeared, including both sacred and secular pieces, which he also had performed. Presumably his increased literary activity is due to his demand for social legitimation. 1546 he got his father's house inherited and acquired as a homeowner to citizenship in Colmar. In 1543 he was mentioned there as a bookseller . It is said that Wickram was married, but there is no precise information about the person of his wife.

Building on a Mainz song manuscript acquired in Schlettstadt on December 21, 1546 , he founded a Meistersängergesellschaft in Colmar, to which he donated this manuscript. His musical creative phase, in which he composed songs himself and, among other things, created a collection of 73 songs, mainly by Hans Sachs , can also be classified into this period . Around 1555 Wickram became the town clerk in Burkheim am Kaiserstuhl. He seems to have been sick for the last few years of his life. No new works by him appeared after 1557. The exact year of his death is unknown; in a print published in Strasbourg in 1562 he is described as deceased.

Works

( Title in modernized spelling )

• Game of the Ten Ages , 1531
• The loyal Eckart 1532
• The fool's pouring , 1537/1538
• Knight Galmy , 1539
• The Game of the Prodigal Son , 1540
• History of Reinhart and Gabriotto , 1551
• From Drunkenness , 1551
• The Young Boys' Mirror , 1554
• Rollwagenbüchlin , 1555
• The errant pilgrim , 1555
• From Good and Bad Neighbors , 1556
• The seven main vices , 1556/57
• The gold thread , 1557

Wickram's translation of the Metamorphoses

In 1545, Wickram's adaptation of the Metamorphoses was published - a translation by Albrecht von Halberstadt , which was written around 1200. Wickram's goal in this process is said to have been to create access to the Ovid material for those unfamiliar with Latin. It also served as a manual for literary producers. Wickram is said to have recommended its processing as a moral textbook at the time. He made both formal and substantive changes. For example, he increased the number of syllables in the verses , but reduced the total number of verses . He designed his processing with specially created woodcut illustrations . The fact that his Metamorphoses must have met with great approval is proven by the four copies of his work up to the year 1631. To this day it is controversial what knowledge of Latin Wickram had. It is believed that he was self-taught .

Work edition

• Complete works , ed. by Hans-G. Roloff, 13 volumes, de Gruyter, Berlin 1967–1973

literature

• Gudrun Bamberger: Poetology in the prose novel. Fortunatus - Wickram - Faustbuch , Würzburg 2018 (= Poetics and Episteme, Vol. 2).
• Jens Haustein: Jörg Wickram. In: Killy Literature Lexicon . Vol. 12: Vas - Z . Gütersloh / Munich 1992.
• Erich Kleinschmidt : Jörg Wickram. In: Stefan Füssel (ed.): German poets of the early modern period (1450–1600). Your life and work. Berlin 1993, pp. 494-511.
• Manfred Knedlik: Jörg (Georg) Wickram. In: Rupp, Heinz; Lang, Carl-Ludwig (Ed.): German Literature Lexicon , Volume 31. Biographical-Bibliographical Handbook. Werenberg-Wiedling, Berlin.
• Achim Masser: Georg Wickram and the beginning of the civil novel. In: Eugen Thurnher (Hrsg.): Alsace and Tyrol at the turn of the Middle Ages to the modern age. (= Schlern writings; 295). Innsbruck, 1994, pp. 63-73.
• Nicolas Potysch: Repeatedly ambiguous in image and writing: Ambiguity in the illustrated novel . Hanover 2018.
• Brigitte Rücker: The processing of Ovid's Metamorphoses by Albrecht von Halberstadt and Jörg Wickram and their commentary by Gerhard Lorichius. Edited by Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher and Cornelius Sommer, Göppingen 1997 Wilhelm Scherer: The beginnings of the German prose novel and Jörg Wickram von Colmar. A criticism . In: Sources and research on the linguistic and cultural history of the Germanic peoples , No. 21, Strasbourg et al. 1877.
• Erich Schmidt:  Wickram, Jörg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, pp. 328-336.
• Ingeborg Spriewald: Jörg Wickram and the beginnings of realistic prose narration in Germany. Habilitation. Potsdam 1971.
• Silke Winst: "Womanish" lovesick and victorious knight. On the concept of masculinity in Jörg Wickram's Ritter Galmy (1539) . In: Judith Klinger, Susanne Thiemann (eds.): Gender variations. Gender concepts in the transition to modern times. Univ.-Verlag Potsdam, Potsdam 2006, ISBN 978-3-937786-86-5 ( full text ).

Web links

Wikisource: Jörg Wickram  - Sources and full texts

• Works by Jörg Wickram at Zeno.org .
• Works by Jörg Wickram in the Gutenberg-DE project
• Text by Ritter Galmy (Bibliotheca Augustana)
• Text from the trolley booklet (Bibliotheca Augustana)
• Text of the good and bad neighbor (Bibliotheca Augustana)
• http://www.joerg-wickram.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erich Kleinschmidt : Jörg Wickram. In: Stefan Füssel (ed.): German poets of the early modern period (1450–1600). Your life and work. Berlin 1993, pp. 494-511.
2. ↑ Manfred Knedlik: Jörg (Georg) Wickram , German Literature Lexicon Volume 31, Sp. 568-577.
3. ↑ Erich Kleinschmidt : Jörg Wickram. In: Stefan Füssel (ed.): German poets of the early modern period (1450–1600). Your life and work. Berlin 1993, pp. 494-511.
4. ↑ Brigitte Rücker: The processing of Ovid's Metamorphoses by Albrecht von Halberstadt and Jörg Wickram and their commentary by Gerhard Lorichius. Edited by Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher and Cornelius Sommer. Göppingen 1997, pp. 97-116.
5. ↑ Manfred Knedlik: Jörg (Georg) Wickram , German Literature Lexicon Volume 31, Sp. 568-577.
6. ↑ Brigitte Rücker: The processing of Ovid's Metamorphoses by Albrecht von Halberstadt and Jörg Wickram and their commentary by Gerhard Lorichius. Edited by Ulrich Müller, Franz Hundsnurscher and Cornelius Sommer. Göppingen 1997, pp. 116-121.