Helene Homeyer

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Helene Homeyer (born May 22, 1898 in Munich as Helene Simon or Helene Simon-Eckardt ; † October 13, 1996 at Ammersee ) was a German classical scholar , linguist and Middle Latin philologist .

Life

Helene Simon was the daughter of the Sanskritist Richard Nathan Simon (1865–1934) and his wife, the painter and restorer Annette, née von Eckardt (1871–1934), who after Helene's birth was temporarily lover of the painter Franz Marc . In 1912 the parents separated. First in Munich, later in Berlin , she attended elementary school and then grammar school . The First World War and the post-war period left both parents penniless. At a time when the study of women was still unusual, she began studying Classical Philology, Sanskrit and Classical Archeology at the Berlin University in the summer semester of 1918 . Her academic teachers included Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , Eduard Norden , Hermann Diels , Eduard Fraenkel and Eduard Meyer . In spring 1919 she moved to the University of Heidelberg , where Otto Weinreich , Karl Meister , Ludwig Curtius and Franz Boll were the most important academic teachers. At Franz Boll Simon was in 1922 with the thesis The characteristics of the age in Plato doctorate . She could not begin the academic career she was aiming for because she lacked the financial means to secure her.

In the 1920s, Berlin in particular also offered women with Simon's training the chance of a suitable job. Simon began to work as a research assistant at the Walter de Gruyter publishing house . Here she came into closer contact with the literature of the "Latin Middle Ages" and the afterlife of ancient texts. In addition, she worked on the artistic design of books and acquired knowledge of modern book production. Her boss and mentor was the German studies specialist , antiquarian , literary critic and book lover Fritz Homeyer (1880–1973), who brought her in connection with the Maximilian Society for Bibliophilia , which he directed . For the society she translated three letters of Plato , which were published in 1925/26 in a book with the title Tres Epistolae Platonis , which was highly valued by book lovers . In 1926 she became friends with the printer Oda Weitbrecht while working on the publication of Christophe Plantin's Rimes - again for the Maximilian Society . For the Berlin bibliophile evening in 1927, she arranged for the publication of Hieronymus Bononiensis to publish an early praise of the art of printing . She married Fritz Homeyer and ended her greater commitment to the Maximilian Society in 1929 with the translation and publication of Sallust's Catilinarian Unrest . Then she devoted herself to the translation of the complete works of Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim (Roswitha von Gandersheim), which was not available in German until then . In 1936 it was published by Ferdinand Schöningh , where it was reissued in 1973. It was intended, as was the work of women poets of pagan antiquity and early Christian times , published the following year , in which they brought together the works of women authors from a period of more than 1500 years, as work for a broader readership. The publication of the latter book also spoke for the almost untimely courage of the publisher. Since August 28, 1935, Homeyer, as a “ half-Jew ”, was prohibited from any activity in a culture-mediating profession by a letter from the Reich Chamber of Literature , and from February 4, 1937, any type of publication. The publishing house also reissued this book in 1979 under the title Poets of Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages .

In 1938 Fritz Homeyer was declared an intolerable person by the responsible Nazi authorities . The couple managed to emigrate to Great Britain just in time. Fritz Homeyer found a job as a bookseller, Helene Homeyer first had to learn English (she also learned Russian ). She did so successfully and so convincingly that in 1943 she was commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a German-English dictionary, The pocket Oxford German dictionary . It was first published in 1946, the last time in its fifth edition in 1975. She also translated English-language novels by Dorothy Sayers into German. She then worked briefly at a London grammar school , then from 1948 to 1951 as a tutor at a London college . During this time Homeyer devoted himself increasingly to comparative linguistics and wrote a linguistic theory of European languages, which was published in 1947 by Otto Walter in Switzerland under the title From Language to Languages . Her preoccupation with late antiquity and her experiences with the Nazi dictatorship in Germany probably led to the book Attila in 1951 . The king of the Huns represented by his contemporaries. A contribution to the valuation of historical greatness . In 1951 the Homeyers returned to Germany.

Helene Homeyer became a research assistant at the newly opened University of Saarland in Saarbrücken and fulfilled a dream with her work at a German-speaking university. With the thesis Philological-historical preparatory work on the problem of the multilingualism of Italy , she qualified as a professor in Heidelberg in 1955 and shortly thereafter was reloaded to Saarbrücken. In June of that year she became a lecturer there, on December 30, 1957, a private lecturer, and in January 1962, an adjunct professor. Homeyer retired on October 1, 1963. The couple spent their retirement in London. Helene Homeyer continued to work scientifically and repeatedly published essays and independent papers. One of the most important works is The Spartan Helena and the Trojan War . Changes and wanderings in a circle of legends from antiquity to the present from 1977. After her husband died in 1973, she returned to Germany in 1978 and settled on Lake Ammersee in Bavaria. Her last published work was the essay Observations on the survival of the Trojan ancestry and founding sagas in the Middle Ages in 1983. Homeyer died at the age of 99.

Fonts

  • Poets of pagan antiquity and early Christian times , Schöningh, Paderborn 1936
    • simultaneously published in Austria by Fürlinger in Vienna and in Switzerland by Götschmann in Zurich
  • Roswitha von Gandersheim. Works , Schöningh, Paderborn 1936
  • The pocket Oxford German dictionary , Oxford University Press, London and others 1946
  • From language to languages. Philosophy of language. Linguistics. The languages ​​of Europe , Walter, Olten 1947
  • Attila. The king of the Huns represented by his contemporaries. A contribution to the assessment of historical greatness , de Gruyter, Berlin 1951
  • The ancient reports on the death of Cicero and their sources , Grimm, Baden-Baden 1964 (German contributions to classical studies, volume 18)
  • Lukian: How to write history , Fink, Munich 1965
  • Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim: opera , Schöningh, Paderborn-Munich-Vienna 1970
  • The Spartan Helena and the Trojan War. Changes and wanderings of a saga from antiquity to the present , Steiner, Wiesbaden 1977, ISBN 3-515-02534-0 ( Palingenesia , Volume 12)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Homeyer, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simon-Eckardt, Helene; Simon, Helene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist, linguist and Middle Latin
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1996
Place of death at the Ammersee