Johann Wilhelm Petersen (Librarian)

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Johann Wilhelm Petersen (born February 24, 1758 in Bergzabern ; † December 26, 1815 in Stuttgart ), pseudonym Johann Wilhelm Placidus , was a German librarian , lawyer and writer .

Life

Johann Wilhelm Petersen was the son of a consistorial councilor and court preacher. On November 9, 1773 he was admitted to the Charles Academy in Stuttgart to study law . He was a close friend of Karl Schiller and was a close friend in the years that followed . Schiller gave him the manuscript of his robbers and asked for a judgment on the play . In a surviving report from Schiller to Duke Karl von Württemberg about his classmates, the poet praises Petersen for his honest, honest character and sense of friendship. The friendship was renewed when Schiller stayed in Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart for six months from 1793–1794 . On December 15, 1779 Petersen finished his studies at the Charles Academy and got a job as a sub-librarian at the Ducal Public Library in Stuttgart. In 1786 he became a librarian and from 1789 until its dissolution at the beginning of 1794 was professor of diplomatics , numismatics and heraldry at the High Charles School. In August 1794 he was dismissed, probably because of his free political convictions, but reinstalled in November 1795. He died on December 26, 1815 at the age of 57 in Stuttgart.

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According to his friends' descriptions, Petersen was a good, sociable comrade, but a bit confused in his way of life. Above all, he is portrayed as a "heavy drinker". Friedrich Haug , probably his most intimate friend, characterized him more often in epigrams as an alcoholic. Petersen was closely related to Haug and his kindred spirit Friedrich Christoph Weisser in literary terms too. Like them, he was committed to the Age of Enlightenment and therefore also a collaborator in the Morgenblatt, which in his early days was headed by both of them . But apparently he did not participate in the feud against the Romantics led by this paper. His writing mostly relates to cultural-historical objects and often testifies to a significant reading. But he did not write any major works.

One of Petersen's early attempts at writing was the anonymously published history of the German national inclination to drink (Stuttgart 1782). He also published a translation of Ossian's poems anonymously ( Die Gedichte Ossians neuverteutschet , Tübingen 1782; 2nd edition Tübingen 1808). Petersen wrote smaller cultural-historical works, such as a biography of the theologian Johann Valentin Andreae , for the Wirtemberg Repertory , which he edited together with Friedrich Schiller and Professor Abel in 1782/83 , of which only three editions appeared. Petersen showed himself to be a thinking head in the award publication, which was awarded an accessite by the electoral German society in Mannheim. What have been the changes and epochs in the main German language since Charlemagne and how has it gained or lost strength and expression in each of them? (Writings of the electoral German society in Mannheim, 1787, 3rd vol., Pp. 7-251). The accessit consisted of a gold medal, the value of which was 25 ducats .

Petersen wrote a literature on the theory of the state under the pseudonym Johann Wilhelm Placidus , of which only the first section appeared in Stuttgart in 1797 or 1798. In the Morgenblatt he published numerous articles with mixed contents and different titles, mostly cultural-historical anecdotes, such as At what time were people in Germany above belief in ghosts? (1809, No. 137 ff.), Leibniz , regarded as a German letter writer (1812, No. 143) and How early was Homer known in Germany? (1812, no.228). More important are Petersen's memories of Schiller ( Schiller's earliest youth history until the awakening of his poetic spirit and Schiller in the second period of his development , in Morgenblatt 1807, nos. 164, 181, 182, 186, 201) , which appeared in the same journal . These communications are very valuable, since they come from an author who was very close to the poet in his youth; Unfortunately, its exact value is not entirely certain.

The most extensive thing that Petersen has left behind are the collections he acquired from Johann Friedrich Cotta after his death and donated to the royal public library in Stuttgart by his grandson in 1866 (with the exception of a manuscript on Schiller's youth history). They include records of cultural history, especially of the German Middle Ages , of medieval German literature, the history of politics, the history of individual sciences, Württembergika and miscellings. These collections are not processed together, but often show considerable resourcefulness and are not infrequently drawn from very remote, hard-to-find sources.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Johann Wilhelm Petersen  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Petersen, Johann Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Placidus, Johann Wilhelm (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German librarian
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1758
PLACE OF BIRTH Bergzabern
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1815
Place of death Stuttgart