Karl Ludwig von Knebel
Karl Ludwig von Knebel , also Carl Ludwig von Knebel (born November 30, 1744 at Wallerstein Castle near Nördlingen , † February 23, 1834 in Jena ) was a German poet and translator , as well as the "great friend" of Johann Wolfgang Goethe .
Life
origin
Karl Ludwig Knebel was the son of Johann Georg Friedrich Knebel (* October 13, 1697 in Bayreuth; † March 3, 1787 ibid) and his wife Elisabeth Magdalene, née Mayer (* March 7, 1720 in Bayreuth; † March 6, 1805 in Ansbach ). His father was the margrave of Ansbach privy councilor , district envoy and feudal provost , his mother the daughter of court and government councilor Martin Gottlieb Mayer. The father received the Prussian nobility in 1756. He had several brothers: Wilhelm (1741–1799), Braunschweig ambassador at the court in Stuttgart, and Christian Friedrich (1743–1802), Prussian major general. His sister Henriette (1755–1813) was a teacher at the Weimar court and later a partner of Karoline Luise von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach .
Officer and educator at the Weimar court
After the humanistic education in Nördlingen Knebel 1764 began in Halle a law school , but he dropped out soon. In 1765 he became an officer in the regiment of the Prince of Prussia . During this time he translated Roman classics and made his first own poetic attempts.
In 1773 he finished his military service and traveled to Weimar to Wieland . There he was hired in 1774 by Duchess Anna Amalia von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach as tutor to Prince Constantin and as court master . He stayed with his pupil in Tiefurt , where he laid the foundation stone for the first facilities of the famous park and worked on the Tieffurter Journal .
From December 1774 to May 1775 he accompanied Princes Carl August and Constantin on a trip or grand tour via Frankfurt am Main , Mainz , Karlsruhe , and Strasbourg to Paris , visited Goethe during a stopover in Frankfurt and introduced him to the princes. As a result, Goethe was invited to Weimar. Knebel cleverly conveyed that Goethe was reconciled with Wieland, whom he had satirically attacked with gods, heroes and Wieland .
Friendship with Goethe
When Goethe moved to Weimar, Knebel became his closest friend ("Urfreund"). In 1780 he gave up his teaching post.
In 1785 he accompanied Goethe on his journey from Weimar to Karlsbad . The diary kept by Knebel records joint observations on the geology in East Thuringia, in the context of which both were particularly interested in supposedly basaltic rocks, which Goethe had already noticed as paving stones in Neustadt an der Orla . Then examined gag designated to him by Goethe outcrops at Neunhofen on the extent and manifestations. Goethe abandoned his assumption that they were "basalts" and took the dense black rocks for clay slate . However, they were later identified as greywacke , which are interchanged with clay slate. On their further trip to Hof and Wunsiedel , both of them collected further observations in the Thuringian Slate Mountains , whereby they found no evidence of a suspected “ basaltic mountain range ”. In this way, Knebel and Goethe made an early contribution to the geological exploration of this region.
family
In 1798 he married Luise von Rudorff, from 1791 to 1794 chamber singer in Weimar and lover of Duke Carl August von Sachsen-Weimar , and adopted her son Carl (1796–1861), later major and police director in Ebersdorf, from her relationship with Carl August. Her parents were the Prussian Rittmeister Friedrich Wilhelm Rudorff and his wife Catharina Charlotte von Britzke . Luise's way of life was generally disapproved, so that Goethe's Xenion to the new Sankt Antonius (“Mr. Brother, what little bitch are you bringing to your hermitage! ... God help us!”) Relates to Knebel's marriage. He and his wife first moved to Ilmenau , and in 1805 they moved to Jena . Knebel died there on February 23, 1834.
meaning
Weimar Classicism is inconceivable without Karl Ludwig von Knebel: The sensitive thinker and gifted mind was not only an irreplaceable companion for Goethe, but also Johann Gottfried Herder . With his ability to think his way around the works of his friends and to take part in them, he also had an influence on the development of their writings: "You shouldn't underestimate your position for German idealism," says Knebel's first biographer, Hellmuth von Maltzahn , "It is precisely the receiving and transmitting spirits that really create a culture, and without which the stimulators and creators would work in vain".
It is certainly also significant that a painted portrait of Knebel is also in the rococo hall of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library . It is no coincidence that it is under the well-known picture of Johann Joseph Schmeller , where Goethe dictates a text to his scribe John. The relationship between Goethe and his “original friend” is also indicated.
plant
- In 1770 he published in the Göttingen Musenalmanach ;
- In 1779, on April 6th, he played Thoas in Goethe's Iphigenia on Tauris ;
- he translates the tragedy "Saul" by Vittorio Alfieri ;
- In 1815 his collection of “ Little Poems ” appears;
- In 1821 his translation of Lucretius ' De rerum natura was published by Göschen in both a monolingual and a bilingual version , still without any attribution;
- In 1831, this time under Knebel's name, the monolingual version of the Lucretian translation was published in the second improved edition; it was reprinted several times until 1960, partly in a revised version. This makes Knebel the most successful and influential of the early German Lucretian translators.
Goethe mentions his confidante in the poem Ilmenau .
Letters
- Varnhagen von Ense, Karl August & Mundt, Theodor (eds.): KL von Knebel's literary estate and correspondence. 3 vols. Leipzig 1835-1840.
- Düntzer, Heinrich (ed.): Karl Ludwig von Knebel's correspondence with his sister Henriette (1774-1813). Jena 1858.
- Düntzer, Heinrich (ed.): On German literature and history: unprinted letters from Knebel's estate. 2 vols. Nuremberg 1858 ( digital copies in the digital library Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)
- Ders .: From and to Herder. Unprinted letters from Herder's estate. 3 vols. Weimar 1861/62.
- Guhrauer, GE (ed.): Correspondence between Goethe and Knebel. (1774-1832). 2 parts in 2 volumes. Lpz .: Brockhaus, 1851.
literature
- Jakob Minor : Karl Ludwig von Knebel . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, pp. 275-278.
- Hellmuth von Maltzahn: Karl Ludwig von Knebel. Goethe's friend. Jena 1929.
- Adalbert Elschenbroich: Knebel, Karl Ludwig von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , pp. 169-171 ( digitized version ).
- Walter Hettche: With the most tender feelings. Karl Ludwig von Knebel in correspondence with Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim. In: Writings of the Darmstadt Goethe Society, Issue 1, pp. 7–37, Bernstein-Verlag, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-939431-59-6 .
- Arne Eppers: gag. A story . Hanover: Wehrhahn 2014. ISBN 978-3-86525-364-4
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl Ludwig von Knebel in the catalog of the German National Library
- Karl Ludwig von Knebel in the Bavarian literature portal (project of the Bavarian State Library )
Individual evidence
- ^ Gero von Wilpert : Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , p. 571.
- ↑ Rudolf Hundt: Goethe and the geology of East Thuringia . Gera 1949, pp. 33-35
- ↑ Goethe : Tame Xenien VIII
- ^ Hellmuth von Maltzahn: Karl Ludwig von Knebel. Goethe's friend . Frommannsche Buchhandlung, Jena 1929, p. 160.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Knebel, Karl Ludwig von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Knebel, Carl Ludwig von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German poet and translator, as well as the "Urfreund" of Johann Wolfgang Goethe |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 30, 1744 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | at Wallerstein Castle near Nördlingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 23, 1834 |
| Place of death | Jena |