Wilhelm Meinhold

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Wilhelm Meinhold (1846)
Wilhelm Meinhold
W. Meinhold's autograph from a letter clipping

Johannes Wilhelm Meinhold (born February 27, 1797 in Netzelkow on Usedom , † November 30, 1851 in Charlottenburg ) was a German writer , doctor of theology and pastor . His most important work is the novel Maria Schweidler, The Amber Witch, published in 1843 .

Life

As the son of the Evangelical Lutheran pastor of Netzelkow Georg Wilhelm Meinhold (1767–1828) and his first wife Anna Elisabeth Lenger (1762–1805), he received lessons from his father at home in the classical languages. From 1813 to 1815 he studied theology, philology and philosophy in Greifswald, which was still Swedish at the time . There he heard Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten , to whom he presented his first literary samples and who subsequently encouraged him in his literary ambitions.

Meinhold left the University of Greifswald after two years due to lack of money. In order to still be able to take the exams, he trained himself further after he had found a job as a private tutor near Ueckermünde . In 1817 he passed his theological exam. In 1818 he took up a position as professor with Vice- Pleban Hans Franz Gering (1758–1814) in Gützkow, who was paralyzed after a stroke .

After he had passed the school examination, the 23-year-old became the school principal of the city school in Usedom in 1820 .

He married Little's daughter Juliane. His mother-in-law was Christiane Therese Elisabeth (1762–1797), the daughter of the Rostock theologian Johann Jakob Quistorp (1717–1766).

A congratulatory poem for the President of the Province of Pomerania , Johann August Sack , as well as a letter of recommendation from Jean Paul , which he forwarded in excerpts to Sack, helped him to find a parish in Koserow on Usedom in 1821 . In 1824 his first book was published, "Mixed Poems". The religious epic “St. Otto, Bishop of Bamberg ”helped him get the better paid pastor in Krummin through the mediation of Sack . Here in 1838 he began to rewrite his unpublished novella “The Pastor's Daughter of Coserow” in an antiquated language from the time of the Thirty Years' War. The apparent chronicle, written in first-person form, has novel-like features.

With Maria Schweidler, the amber witch , he created a new literary genre, the chronic narrative. Meinhold first published excerpts from the alleged manuscript find in the periodical Christoterpe in 1841 and 1842 . Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV became aware of the allegedly 200-year-old source and requested the entire manuscript on April 16, 1842. Meinhold had to grant his king his own authorship. The king himself, who had known the pastor personally since his time as crown prince, arranged for the printing and a deceptive preface to be printed in 1843 in which the author describes himself as the editor of a chance find.

The Amber Witch was translated into English as early as 1844 and has been dramatized several times by the director of the Vienna Burgtheater Heinrich Laube, among others . The world premiere took place in the Hamburger Schauspielhaus . Productions in Berlin , among others, followed. An English opera adaptation by William Vincent Wallace premiered in London's Her Majesty's Theater in 1861 . Meinhold's most successful work appears in new editions to this day. The alleged chronicle had initially been generally found to be genuine and attracted much attention. After a year Meinhold went public and referred to himself as the author. Large parts of the public doubted this, Friedrich Hebbel demonstrated in a detailed treatise that it must undoubtedly be a work of art from the imagination of a poet.

His novel Sidonia von Bork, the monastery witch , published in 1847, is based, in contrast to the pure fiction of the amber witch, on a historical model, namely the fate of the Pomeranian aristocracy Sidonia von Borcke (1548-1620). The translation into English was done by Jane Frances Agnes Elgee , later Jane Francesca Lady Wilde and mother of Oscar Wilde . This novel developed a considerable influence on the subjects of the artist and literary circles in the Anglo-Saxon countries. The Pre-Raphaelites around Edward Burne-Jones , John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were fascinated by this aspect of German Romanticism, the depiction of evil. Burne-Jones painted the characters Sidonia and Clara von Borck (now Tate Gallery London) described at the very beginning of his career. In 1893 William Morris had “Sidonia the Sorceress” re-published in a lavishly decorated edition of the London Kelmscott Press .

Wilhelm Meinhold also dealt with apologetic studies. In 1840 the theological faculty in Erlangen awarded him a doctorate for his book Prophecies and Miracles from his Apology of Christianity . In 1844, following the intercession of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV., He moved to a pastorate in Rehwinkel near Stargard . A seven-volume edition of his collected works was published between 1846 and 1848. He was opposed to the revolutionary efforts in Germany. His later writings showed tendencies towards Catholicism , but he never did. After lengthy disputes with his community and authorities, he moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1850 in order to be able to devote himself entirely to writing , where he died the following year.

He had three sons: Georg (1821–1863) was a tenant farmer in Western Pomerania. Aurel Emanuel (1829–1873) converted, became a Catholic pastor, wrote his father's novel The Faithful Knight Sigismund Hager von und zu Altensteig to the end and wrote several political brochures and, in 1870, a novel The Cross of Vineta himself . Wilhelm († 1857) was a tenant tenant in Nikolaiken.

Wilhelm Meinhold's wife Julie died on March 11, 1859.

Works

  • Mixed Poems (1824)
  • The Pastor's Daughter of Coserow (1826)
  • St. Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, or: the cruise to Pomerania (1826)
  • Miniature painting of Rügen and Greifswald (1830)
  • Apology of Christianity (1835)
  • Poems (1835)
  • Humorous travel pictures from the island of Usedom. Löffler, Stralsund 1837. ( digitized version )
  • Maria Schweidler, the Amber Witch (1843), digitized and full text in the German Text Archive ; online .
  • Athanasia or the Transfiguration of Friedrich Wilhelm the Third. Heinrichshofen, Magdeburg 1844. ( digitized version )
  • Collected Writings . JJ Weber, Leipzig 1846–1849
    • Volume 2: The old German rapier button or Frederick the Great as Crown Prince and his father. Weber, Leipzig 1846. ( digitized version )
    • Volume 3: Religiöse Gedichte , Weber, Leipzig 1846 (280 pages), online .
    • Volume 8: The loyal knight Sigismund Hager from and to Altensteig and the Reformation , Part 1, Leipzig 1832. ( online )
    • Volume 9: The loyal knight Sigismund Hager von und zu Altensteig and the Reformation , Part 2 (from Meinhold's estate continued by his son Aurel Immanuel), 2nd edition, Regensburg 1859 (310 pages), online .
  • Sidonia von Bork, the monastery witch (1847/48) ( Online, text of the first edition )
  • Prophecy of Abbot Hermann von Lehnin around 1234 about the fate of the Brandenburg House of Regents and the appointment of Friedrich Wilhelm IV as German King (translation of the " Vaticinium Lehninense ", Leipzig 1849, 211 pages), online .

literature

  • Ignaz Hub : The German Poets of Modern Times , Munich 1852, p. 463 ff.
  • Hermann Petrich :  Meinhold, Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 235-237.
  • Heinrich Kleene: Wilhelm Meinhold's amber witch and her dramatic arrangements . Dissertation, University of Münster 1912.
  • Konstanze Trammer: Wilhelm Meinhold as a novelist . Dissertation, University of Würzburg 1923.
  • Rupprecht Leppla: Wilhelm Meinhold's stories and the beginnings of the chronic novella . Dissertation, University of Frankfurt a. M. 1923.
  • Otto Altenburg : Wilhelm Meinhold's relationships with contemporaries . In: Baltic Studies Vol. 31, 1929, pp. 207 ff.
  • Walter Bethke: Wilhelm Meinhold's letters - as a preliminary study for a Meinhold monograph . University Press Greifswald, Greifswald 1935.
  • Hans Dieter Huber:  Meinhold, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , pp. 671-673 ( digitized version ).
  • Diana Kuhk: The Pomeranian author Wilhelm Meinhold. Study of his complete works . Dissertation, University of Greifswald 1999.
  • Andrea Rudolph: Provinces as spaces of meaning in an ethical modernity. Wilhelm Meinhold's chronical novella “The Amber Witch”. In: Maria Katarzyna Lasatowicz (Ed.): Forming cultural space. Linguistic, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions. Trafo, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-89626-481-7 , pp. 149-178.
  • Andrea Rudolph: Myth. History. Political Society. Cultural overwriting of Pomerania in pictorial poetry, "amber witches" and research works . Verlag JH Röll, Dettelbach near Würzburg 2011. 2. verb. Edition 2014. ISBN 978-3-89754-406-2 .
  • Franz Jeschek: Wilhelm Meinhold - pastor and poet from Pomerania and his amber witch . Koserow 2018, ISBN 978-3-00-060541-3 .

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Meinhold  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Wilhelm Meinhold  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Meinhold, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meinhold, Johannes Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1797
PLACE OF BIRTH Netzelkow on Usedom
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1851
Place of death Charlottenburg