Karl August Mayer

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Karl August Mayer (* 8. July 1808 in Eisenberg (Palatinate) , † 16th October 1894 in Karlsruhe ) was a German teacher , school teacher , school director and writer .

Life

Mayer was born in Eisenberg and was the son of the ironworks manager there. He grew up in the Hunsrück , because from 1810 his father was again the manager of the Asbach smelting and hammer works of the mining entrepreneur family Stumm , founded there in 1743 . From 1819 he attended high school in Kreuznach and from 1827 studied mining and metallurgy at the University of Heidelberg at the request of his father . A short time later, however, he switched to philology . In Heidelberg Mayer heard lectures by the historian Friedrich Christoph Schlosser and became a member of a fraternity . From 1830 he continued his studies in Bonn and later in Berlin . As a result, Mayer worked for several years as a tutor in Lausanne , where he was able to perfect his knowledge of the French language . He then stayed in Naples . Mayer's best-known book Naples and the Neapolitans (1840/42) later emerged from the notes he made there . This work stood in contrast to the romanticizing image of Italy, which until then had been significantly shaped in Germany by Goethe's stay in Italy , and impressed with its contemporary, realistic depiction. After returning to Germany in 1835, he passed the state examination in Bonn and obtained his doctorate .

From 1836 Mayer was a secondary school teacher in Elberfeld and Aachen . Pentecost 1839 he moved to Oldenburg, where he at the Old Grammar School , at the Brigade - military school and at the Cecilia School taught. In Oldenburg he also had the opportunity to participate extensively in the social life of the literary upper class of the Grand Duchy and was in contact with fellow writers such as Julius Mosen , Adolf Stahr and Theodor von Kobbe . Together with Stahr, Mayer then founded the literary sociable society in 1839 , to which he belonged until 1851. In addition, he published numerous articles in magazines, such as in Kobbe's Humorist Papers , in Arnold Ruge's German Yearbooks and in the German Musenalmanach edited by Adelbert von Chamisso and Gustav Schwab .

In 1851 Mayer left Oldenburg and, in exchange with Adolf Laun, switched to the higher citizen school in Mannheim . Here he published a story for the German people . In 1868 Mayer became director of the newly founded Humboldt-Gymnasium in Karlsruhe . In 1873 he retired, he now devoted himself entirely to literature and wrote two multi-volume novels and a wreath of novels.

family

From 1841 Mayer was married to Juliane Gmelin (1817-1896), the daughter of the well-known chemist Leopold Gmelin (1788-1853) and Luise nee. Maurer (1794–1863), sister of Georg Ludwig von Maurer . From this marriage came the son Adolf (1843-1942), who emerged as an agricultural chemist and pioneer of virology .

Publications

  • Naples and the Neapolitans or writings from Naples to the homeland. 2 vols. Oldenburg. 1840-1841.
  • Patriotic poems. 7 booklets. Oldenburg. 1847-1851.
  • The fatherland above everything. A call to the Germans. Oldenburg. 1848.
  • The hunte. A poem. Oldenburg. 1851.
  • French teaching in secondary schools. Oldenburg. 1851.
  • Oldenburg conditions in the handicraft around 1850. In: Die Grenzboten, 18. (j. 1852; German history for the German people, Leipzig 1857-1858).
  • Emperor Heinrich IV. Berlin. 1862 (with autobiography).
  • Two brave hearts. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1876.
  • Poems 1827–1878. Karlsruhe. 1895.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Karl August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher and writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Eisenberg (Palatinate)
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1894
Place of death Karlsruhe