Heinrich Morf (Romanist)

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Heinrich Morf
Signature Heinrich Morf (Romanist) .PNG

Heinrich Morf (born October 23, 1854 in Münchenbuchsee ; † January 23, 1921 in Thun ) was a Swiss Romance scholar , linguist and literary scholar .

Life

Morf, son of the pedagogue of the same name, Heinrich Morf , studied in Zurich and Strasbourg and received his doctorate in Strasbourg in 1877 under Eduard Böhmer on the word order in the old French Roland song (Strasbourg 1878). In 1879, on the recommendation of Gaston Paris , Adolf Tobler and Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler, he became Associate Professor of Romance Philology in Bern, and in 1889 he succeeded Heinrich Breitinger as a full professor in Zurich. By breaking out of the existing connection with English studies, he founded the Romance Department at the University of Zurich.

In 1901 he accepted an appointment as rector of the Frankfurt Academy for Social and Commercial Sciences , the forerunner of the University of Frankfurt . In 1910 he moved to the University of Berlin as the successor to Adolf Tobler and in 1911 became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . Morf was one of the signatories of the Manifesto of 93 of September 1914, which isolated him internationally. The resulting depression made him unable to work from the end of 1917.

Morf was a member of the Kösener Corps Helvetia Zurich .

Doing and researching

As a linguist, Morf recognized the importance of dialect research early on . At his suggestion, his Zurich students Louis Gauchat , Ernst Tappolet and Jules Jeanjaquet founded the Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande . He was also one of the professors who actively campaigned for a new teacher training. In his inaugural lecture in Zurich, he declared: "Modern language teaching should no longer be based on the antiquated medieval view of language, but should be based on today's perceptions of the nature of language and what happens in the language".

In 1905, to celebrate his 25 years of teaching, his students dedicated the volume From Romance Languages ​​and Literatures: Festschrift Heinrich Morf (Halle an der Saale 1905, reprinted Geneva 1980) with contributions by Louis P. Betz, Ernest Bovet , Ernst Brugger , Wilhelm Degen , Arturo Farinelli , Adolf Fluri, Louis Gauchat, Jakob Jud , Jules Jeanjaquet, Emile Keller, Martha Langkavel, Marie Johanna Minckwitz, Käthe Schirmacher and Ernst Tappolet.

Publications

  • History of Modern French Literature (XVI. – XIX. Centuries), Strasbourg 1898.
  • From poetry and language of the Romanes, Strasbourg 1911 (in it pp. 331–363 the Zurich inaugural lecture “The Study of Romance Philology”).
  • History of French Literature in the Age of Renaissance, 2nd edition, Strasbourg 1914.

Obituaries

  • Erhard Lommatzsch in: Archive for the Study of Modern Languages. Volume 142, 1920, pp. 78-94.
  • Gustav Roethe : Commemorative speech for Heinrich Morf from June 30, 1921, in: Session reports of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. 1921, 1st half volume, pp. 521-528.
  • Gerhard Rohlfs in: Journal for Romance Philology. Volume 41, 1921, pp. 259-263.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 144 , 7.
  2. ↑ See Christmann 1976.
personal data
SURNAME Morf, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Romance studies, linguist and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Münchenbuchsee
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1921
Place of death Tuna