Hermann Gmelin

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Hermann Ernst Gustav Gmelin (born August 8, 1900 in Wüstenrot , † November 7, 1958 in Kiel ) was a German Romanist .

biography

Gmelin was a son of the pastor Ernst Gmelin and his wife Lydia Bentel.

Gmelin began to study Romance studies at the University of Tübingen and later moved to Munich (with the same subjects) . With his dissertation "Representation of the person among the Florentine historians of the Renaissance" he was able to successfully complete this course of studies under Leonardo Olschki (1885–1961) in Heidelberg .

Between 1926 and 1928 Gmelin worked as a lecturer for German at the University of Bologna . Later he went back to Germany and in 1930 he was able to submit his habilitation on “The Principle of Imitation in the Romance Literature of the Renaissance” to Philipp August Becker in Leipzig . In 1931 he married Charlotte Patzki in Leipzig and had two daughters and two sons with her.

In the winter semester of 1931 he accepted a position as professor of Romance philology at the Technical University of Danzig . Hermann Gmelin became a member of the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 . In November 1933 he signed the professors' declaration of Adolf Hitler at German universities and colleges . In 1935 he moved to the University of Kiel in the same position and stayed there until the end of his life. Gmelin died in Kiel on November 7, 1958 at the age of 58.

reception

Gmelin carried on the scientific work of his teacher PA Beckers; His focus was on investigating the possibilities of the French and Italian Petrarchists of the Renaissance. His blank verse translation of Dante's “Divine Comedy” and the comments he wrote on it became an epoch-making contribution to Dante philology . In these comments the focus is also (as in his habilitation thesis) on the problem of imitation.

Works (selection)

as an author
  • Epochs of French literature . 1948.
  • French mental form in Sainte-Beuve , Renan and Taine . 1934.
  • Representation of people among the Florentine historians of the Renaissance . Heidelberg 1927.
  • The principle of imitation in the Romance literatures of the Renaissance . in: Romance Research. Quarterly magazine for Romance languages ​​and literatures , Vol. 46 (1932), 98–229.
as translator

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank-Rutger Hausmann : Also a national science? German Romance Studies under National Socialism. In: Romance Journal for the History of Literature 22 (1998), p. 262
  2. ↑ Confession, p. 132

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gmelin, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gmelin, Hermann Ernst Gustav (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Romanist
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Desert red
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 1958
Place of death Kiel