Johann Jakob Christian Donner
Johann Jakob Christian Donner (born October 10, 1799 in Krefeld , † March 28, 1875 in Stuttgart ) was a German translator of ancient Greek and Latin poets. He is particularly known for his translations while maintaining the ancient meter.
Life
Donner was born in Krefeld in 1799 as the son of a businessman and later moved to Stuttgart, where he attended grammar school. Originally determined by his father to be a businessman, he passed the theological state examination on the initiative of his teachers in 1813 and entered the theological seminar in Schöntal , which he left in 1815. After graduating from the Stuttgart high school, Donner went to the University of Tübingen in 1817 to study Protestant theology and classical philology . During his studies in 1817 he became a member of the Germania Tübingen fraternity . During his studies he tried his hand at translating and in 1821 published Juvenal's satires in German. In 1822 followed his translation of the satires of Persius and his exam. The writer and translator Johann Heinrich Voss , who had become famous for his translation of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey , assessed these early works favorably; A friendly exchange of letters ensued between the two.
In 1823 Donner was employed as a repetiteur at the Protestant seminary in Urach , later in Tübingen, and interrupted his translation work. After his appointment as high school professor in Ellwangen (1827) he devoted himself to the Lusiads ( Os Lusíadas ) of the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões . The first samples of his translation, which were received with praise, were published in the Ellwangener Morgenblatt in 1827. He published the full version in bound form in 1833. His best-known work was the translation of the tragedies of Sophocles (1838–1839), which by 1889 saw eleven new editions. With this work he consolidated his position as an important translator: Donner's translation was used in the musical version of the Sophoclean tragedies Antigone and King Oedipus , which Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy composed on behalf of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV .
In the following years Donner published only a translation of the tragedies of Euripides (1843); in the same year he was transferred from Ellwangen to Stuttgart. After his retirement (1852) he devoted himself more to the translation and published metrical translations of the works of Aeschylus (1854), Homer (Iliad and Odyssey, 1860), Pindar (1860), Aristophanes (1861), Terence (1864) and Plautus ( 1865). A stroke brought his work to an abrupt end in 1872. He died of the consequences on March 28, 1875.
To this day, Donner's translations are widely used, for example in the editions of Reclam's Universal Library .
literature
- Karl Klüpfel : Donner, Johann Jakob Christian . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 333 f.
- Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , p. 146.
Web links
- Literature by and about Johann Jakob Christian Donner in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Johann Jakob Christian Donner in the German Digital Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Donner, Johann Jakob Christian |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Donner, Johann Jacob Christian |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German translator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 10, 1799 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Krefeld |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 28, 1875 |
| Place of death | Stuttgart |