Karl Langosch

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Karl Langosch (born April 11, 1903 in Berlin ; † March 10, 1992 ) was a German old Germanist , philologist and university professor who dealt in particular with medieval German literature in Latin.

Career and work

After graduating from high school, Langosch studied German language and literature - especially with Gustav Roethe - and Middle Latin philology with Karl Strecker at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin . He completed his doctorate as Dr. phil. at the University of Berlin in 1932 with a dissertation on The Language of the Göttweiger Trojan War .

Langosch acquired extensive knowledge of both German and Latin literature of the Middle Ages. This was shown in his collaboration on the "German Dictionary" of the Prussian Academy of Sciences from 1929 to 1936, as a lecturer for Middle Latin Philology at the University of Berlin since 1936 and through numerous articles for "The German Literature of the Middle Ages - Author's Lexicon", which he in the successor to Wolfgang Stammler as editor from 1943 to 1955. Langosch understood "the literatures of the Western Middle Ages as being intertwined and with one another, as products of a uniformly Latin-influenced educational culture in Europe that differed only in language." On the basis of this medievalist view, Langosch produced many valuable text editions and text interpretations of Middle Latin literature.

After completing his habilitation , Langosch was appointed professor for the Middle Latin Department at the Institute for Classical Studies at the University of Cologne in the winter semester of 1957/58 . Here he researched and taught until the end of the summer semester 1969. In Cologne, Langosch concentrated on the task of "showing the medieval literatures of Europe as a cohesive whole and providing the fundamentals for their Middle Latin component." the Latin Middle Ages ”(1963),“ The German Literature of the Latin Middle Ages in its Historical Development ”,“ The Tradition of the Medieval Latin Literature ”(1964) and the“ Profiles of the Latin Middle Ages ”(1966). Langosch has succeeded in successfully developing and establishing the subject of "Middle Latin Philology", a new subject for Cologne University, between the long-established disciplines of Classical Philology, Older German Studies and Medieval History.

Even after his retirement in 1969, Langosch did not tire of Middle Latin research. This is shown, for example, by the publications “Mittellatein und Europa. Guided tour of the main literature of the Middle Ages ”and“ Europe's Latin of the Middle Ages ”. "In the middle of working on a book about the Latin and vernacular versions of the Alexander legend in the Middle Ages, death took his pen out of his hands."

Publications

  • Asinarius and Rapularius (1929),
  • Wilhelm Meyer from Speyer and Paul von Winterfeld, founders of Middle Latin science (1936),
  • Middle Latin as German Studies, a National Task of German Science and School (1937),
  • as editor: Wolfgang Stammler et al. (Hrsg.): Author's lexicon - The German literature of the Middle Ages . 5 volumes, Berlin and Leipzig 1933–1955; Volume 3–5 ed. by Karl Langosch, 1943 ff.
  • Political poetry about Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (1943),
  • The Teutons (1948),
  • The Middle Ages (1951),
  • Hymns and Vagant Songs (1954),
  • Waltharius, Ruodlieb, Märchenepen (1956),
  • Spiritual games (1957), hymns and vagante songs (1958),
  • Vagant poetry (1963), Latin Middle Ages (1963),
  • History of the text transmission of ancient and medieval literature. Transmission history of medieval literature (Volume 2, 1964),
  • The historical development of German literature in the Latin Middle Ages (1964),
  • Middle Latin Studies and Texts (1965),
  • The songs of Archipoeta (1965),
  • Profiles of the Latin Middle Ages (1965)
  • The European Literature of the Middle Ages (1966).

Even after his retirement he continued his extensive literary work and published numerous other works well into old age, such as

  • Lyrical anthology of the Latin Middle Ages (1968),
  • Middle Latin poetry (1969),
  • Woman, Wine and Dice Game (1969),
  • Medieval Studies (1970), Literature and Language in the European Middle Ages (1973),
  • Latin Middle Ages (1975), The German Literature of the Middle Ages: Author's Lexicon (1977),
  • King Arthur and his Round Table (1980),
  • Small Fonts (1986), Middle Latin and Europe (1990)
  • Europe's Latin of the Middle Ages (1990).

In addition, he published texts and translations of medieval writings such as

  • The "Registrum multorum auctorum" by Hugo von Trimberg (1942),
  • The Nibelunge Nôt (1953),
  • The letters of Emperor Henry IV with the sources on Canossa (1954),
  • Life, suffering and miracles of the holy Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne by Caesarius von Heisterbach ("Heisterbacensis", 1955),
  • Waltharius, Ruodlieb, Märchenepen (1956),
  • Brevis Germaniae descriptio by Johannes Cochläus (1960),
  • Dulcitius von Hrotsvit ("Gandeshemensis", 1964),
  • Ludus de Antichristo-Das Tegernsee Game by the German Emperor and the Antichrist (1965),
  • Reineke Fuchs (1967),
  • Donisii, comedia pamphile (1979)
  • Fool's Mirror or Burnellus, the Donkey Who Wants to Have a Longer Tail by Nigellus de Longchamp (1982).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Bernhard König (Rector of the University of Cologne): Karl Langosch (1903 - 1992), obituary December 1992
  2. ↑ Middle Latin Studies and Texts (Google Books)
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Stammler, Karl Langosch, Kurt Ruh: The German Literature of the Middle Ages: Author's Lexicon (Google Books)
personal data
SURNAME Langosch, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German old Germanist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1992