Johann Jakob Bodmer

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Johann Jakob Bodmer in his younger years
Johann Jakob Bodmer, mirrored copy in the Gleimhaus after the portrait by Anton Graff . Graff made the draft for the original painting on his trip to Switzerland in 1781

Johann Jakob Bodmer (born July 19, 1698 in Greifensee near Zurich ; † January 2, 1783 at Gut Schönenberg near Zurich) was a Swiss philologist .

Life

After studying theology and training as a businessman, Bodmer worked as a professor of Swiss history and politics at the Collegium Carolinum in Zurich. His rediscovery of Middle High German poetry and his work as a translator for Homer and John Milton are significant . It should also be mentioned that he cheated Jacob Hermann Obereit , the real discoverer of the Nibelung manuscript in the Hohenems castle library , of this honor.

Bodmer's decisive contribution to German literary history was the dispute he and his friend Johann Jakob Breitinger had with the German " literary pope" Johann Christoph Gottsched . Bodmer formulated his literary theoretical principles in the Critical Treatise of the Wonderful in Poetry of 1740. Against Gottsched's French models, he favored the English sensualism of John Milton ; against the veneration of antiquity, he held up the Middle Ages, with which he decisively influenced romanticism . In a way, the dispute between Bodmer, Breitinger, and Gottsched was a German variant of the French Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes .

Johann Heinrich Füssli : Füssli in conversation with Johann Jakob Bodmer

In addition to his formative influence on literary life in Zurich, Bodmer was also an important figure in the city's library history. In 1722 he became a member of the city library society, from 1758 he acted as its vice-president. At Bodmer's suggestion, the Society changed the name of its institution to the City Library . In addition, Bodmer bequeathed a generous amount of money to the Zurich City Library as well as a substantial part of his private book collection, which became part of the library after his death.

Estate, honors

Letters, personal documents, materials and memoirs from the estate of Johann Jakob Bodmer can be found in the manuscript department of the Zurich Central Library. As a tribute to this important Zurich man and patron of the library, Bodmer still sits enthroned as a statue to the right of Conrad Gessner above the entrance to the Zurich Central Library .

The Bodmerstrasse in narrow quarters in Zurich was named after Johann Jakob Bodmer, as well as the Bodmer street in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd District).

Fonts (selection)

Bodmer's house in Zurich (left in the background) on a view from 1772

literature

Johann Jacob Bodmer - Letters to Him.jpg
  • Wolfgang Bender: Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger. (= Metzler Collection; 113). Metzler, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-476-10113-4 .
  • Michael Böhler: Bodmer, Johann Jakob. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  • Albert M. Debrunner: «The golden Swabian age». Johann Jakob Bodmer and the Middle Ages as a model in the 18th century. (= Epistemata / Series Literary Studies; 170). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1996, ISBN 3-8260-1178-3 .
  • Fritz Ernst:  Bodmer, Johann Jakob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 362 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Hans Otto Horch, Georg-Michael Schulz: The wonderful and the poetics of the early enlightenment. Gottsched and the Swiss. (= Income from research; 262). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1988, ISBN 3-534-02150-9 .
  • Felix Leibrock: Enlightenment and the Middle Ages. Bodmer, Gottsched and Medieval German Literature. (= Microcosm; 23). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1988, ISBN 3-8204-1294-8 .
  • Johann Kaspar Mörikofer :  Bodmer, Johann Jakob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, pp. 19-23.
  • Annegret Pfalzgraf: A German Iliad? Homer and the “Nibelungenlied” with Johann Jakob Bodmer. At the beginning of the national Nibelungen reception in the 18th century. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2003, ISBN 3-8288-8591-8 .
  • Gerhard Schäfer: “Well-sounding writing” and “touching images”. Sociological studies on the aesthetics of Gottsched and the Swiss. (= European university publications / 1; 967). Lang, Frankfurt a. a. 1987, ISBN 3-8204-0027-3 .
  • Friedrich Schlegel: Make yourself "master of the reader's mind". On the aesthetic effects of the poetics of Bodmer and Breitinger. (= European university publications / 1; 928). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1986, ISBN 3-8204-9636-X .
  • Dietrich Seybold: Johann Jakob Bodmer . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 1, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 226 f.
  • Eberhard Thiefenthaler: "Finding the manuscript of the Nibelungenlied in Hohenems". In: Montfort. 31/1979, pp. 295 - 306 [1] (On Bodmer's role in finding the Nibelung manuscript )
  • Angelika Wetterer : Relation to the public and claim to truth. The contradiction between the rhetorical approach and the philosophical claim in Gottsched and the Swiss. (= Studies on German literature; 68). Niemeyer, Tübingen 1981, ISBN 3-484-18068-4 .
  • Anett Lütteken, Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer (eds.): Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger in the network of the European Enlightenment . (= The Eighteenth Century - Supplementa, Vol. 16). Wallstein, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-8353-0560-1 .
  • Wilhelm Körte (ed.): Letters from the Swiss Bodmer, Sulzer, Geßner. Zurich 1804. Digitized

Web links

Commons : Johann Jakob Bodmer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Johann Jakob Bodmer  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ekhart Berckenhagen: Anton Graff - life and work. Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1967, p. 66.
personal data
SURNAME Bodmer, Johann Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss author
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1698
PLACE OF BIRTH Greifensee
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1783
Place of death Gut Schöneberg near Zurich