Johann Georg Wedge

Johann Georg Keil,
lithograph around 1830

Johann Georg Keil (born March 20, 1781 in Gotha , † July 1, 1857 in Leipzig ) was a German poet and Romanist .

life and work

Johann Georg Keil was the fifth of seven children of the Gotha administrative officer Johann Heinrich Keil. Even in his early years he was intensively involved in drawing, reading and poetry. From the age of twelve he learned Spanish and Italian at his own request. Initially pushed to play the piano, he soon occupied himself with other musical instruments and took lessons in music theory.

When he was 15 years old, his father died and he left the Gotha high school to take up a commercial apprenticeship in Chemnitz . From 1803 further school and study years followed in Weimar and Jena . In 1809 he found a job in the ducal library in Weimar. At the same time he was a high school teacher of Italian, Spanish and English, and he began to publish textbooks for Italian and Spanish, as well as early editions, original and translation, of the Italian and Spanish classics. On Goethe's advice , he also dealt with the art collection belonging to the Weimar library.

Keil found its way into Weimar society and was even accepted into the exclusive Masonic Lodge Anna Amalia to the three roses . In the Weimar circles in 1813 he met nineteen-year-old Juliane Henriette Löhr (1794–1848), the daughter of the Leipzig banker Carl Eberhard Löhr (1763–1813), who died in the same year. His widow and her two daughters had fled to Weimar from the turmoil of the Battle of Nations . In autumn 1814 Juliane Henriette and Johann Georg married and moved to Leipzig.

In Leipzig, Keil continued his literary work as a private scholar , for example with the critical edition of Calderón's over 100 plays in the original language. But he also had different tasks to perform. From his wife's grandfather, Eberhard Heinrich Löhr (1725–1798), the family owned one of the largest collections of paintings in Leipzig. The second grandfather, the engraver Johann Friedrich Bause (1738–1814), also had a considerable collection of engravings. Keil had to look after both collections and at the same time to manage Löhr's assets.

Keil's Leipzig property from the garden side

This included the lavish residential palace (today the Hotel Fürstenhof has been rebuilt several times ) with a huge adjoining garden, Löhrs Garten . The garden had been devastated in the course of the Battle of the Nations. Keil redesigned the garden, including new outbuildings and greenhouses for its impressive plant collection.

In 1828 Keil was appointed canon and in 1831 dean at the Wurzen collegiate monastery , and in 1833/34 he represented this in the first chamber of the Saxon state parliament . In 1831 he was appointed to the management of the Gewandhaus, to which he belonged until the end of his life.

Johann Georg Keil was one of the initiators of the Leipzig Conservatory of Music and became its first managing director after it was founded in 1843. He left the conception of the musical training entirely to the first director of studies at the facility, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847). In 1848 he submitted his resignation from the function of the Saxon King, who accepted him with regret and thanks.

family

Keil's 33-year marriage resulted in six children, two of whom died shortly after birth and a daughter at the age of 23. Keil's interest in the world of children is expressed in his two fairy tale volumes, which contain the stories he told his grandchildren. One of the grandchildren, Adolph Keil, had the garden plot gradually parceled out from 1870 onwards and sold the remaining part and the house to the Leipzig real estate company in 1886.

Honors

• 1814 Ducal Councilor in Weimar
• 1828 honorary doctorate from the University of Jena
• 1831 member of the Royal Spanish Academy

Works

• Ed. Biblioteca italiana , 11 volumes, Gotha, 1806–1812, therein Tasso's La Gerusalemme liberata , Dantes Rime and Vita Nuova as well as his La Divina Commedia , Boiardo's Orlando inamorato and Boccaccio's Decamerone
• Übers. Life of Lazarillo von Tormes , Gotha 1810
• Translated from Cesare Giudici: Happy Accidents of Love , Gotha 1814

Cover sheet for the volume of poetry Lyra and Harp

• Quevedo : Historia y vida del gran tacaño del Buscon, llmado D. Pablos , Gotha 1811, translation of the history and life of the arch priest called Don Paul , Leipzig 1826
• Ed. Calderón de la Barca: Comedias , Leipzig 1819–1822, 1827–1830
• Italian language teaching: For German grammar schools and high schools, also for self-teaching for students ... , Erfurt 1812, 2nd edition Erfurt 1821, 3rd edition Erfurt 1831, reprint Nabu Press 2012
• Libro Elementar de La Lengua Castellana: Parte Prosaica , Gotha 1814, reprint Nabu Press 2011,
• Spanish language teaching: For German grammar schools and high schools, also for self-teaching for students ... , (Gotha 1817, 2nd edition Leipzig 1837) (online)
• Lyre and harp. Song samples , (volume of poems), Verlag Friedrich Fleischer, Leipzig 1834 (online)
• Fairy tales and stories of a grandfather . Illustrated by Ludwig Richter and J. Kirchhoff, Leipzig 1847, 1860 (online)
• New fairy tales for my grandchildren , Verlag Georg Wigand, Leipzig 1849, reprint Unikum Verlag, Lindau ISBN 978-3-8457-0047-2 , (online)
• Catalog of the copperplate engraving by Johann Friedrich Bause . With some biographical notes , Verlag Rudolf Weigel, Leipzig 1849 (online)

literature

• Albert Schumann:  Keil, Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 451 f.
• Harald Wentzlaff-Eggebert : Weimar's husband in Leipzig: Johann Georg Keil (1781–1857) and his share in the cultural life of the epoch. A documented reconstruction. Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH, Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8253-5589-0 .
• Anna-Barbara Schmidt: And by the way, Gewandhaus director . In: Gewandhausmagazin . No. 94 , 2016, p. 48-51 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Georg Keil  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Johann Georg Keil in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Johann Georg Keil  in the German Digital Library