Karl Mayer (poet)
,_Foto_von_Friedrich_Brandseph.jpg)
Karl Friedrich Hartmann Mayer (born March 22, 1786 in Bischofsheim , † February 25, 1870 in Tübingen ) was a lawyer and poet . He belonged to the Swabian school of poets , the circle of friends around Justinus Kerner and the Serach poet circle around Count Alexander von Württemberg . His younger brother Louis Mayer was a landscape painter .
Life
His father Friedrich Christoph Mayer (1762–1841) was a lawyer (knightly bailiff of the Lords of Helmstatt in Bischofsheim ) who moved with the family to the new place of work in Heilbronn after the death of his employer and later received the title of court counselor. His mother was Johanna Friederike Henriette Hartmann (1762-1820). For his siblings see Friedrich Christoph Mayer, family .
While his brother Louis Mayer spent his youth in Heilbronn, Karl Mayer attended the illustrious grammar school in Stuttgart from 1795 to 1803 , where he lived in the house of his grandfather, the Freemason Johann Georg Hartmann . Hartmann was the one who showed Goethe the city of Stuttgart when he came there in 1779. In his memoirs from 1864, Karl Mayer primarily remembers the publicist and musician CFD Schubart , a forerunner of Georg Büchner , who temporarily moved in with grandfather Hartmann after serving imprisonment on the Hohenasperg.
From 1803 Mayer began studying law in Tübingen, where he also met Ludwig Uhland and Justinus Kerner , with whom he remained connected throughout his life. He often went on trips. Mayer later entered the civil service . From 1809 he was a lawyer in Heilbronn, then an assessor in Esslingen am Neckar . When the introduction of the new constitution was being debated in 1815 , he politically supported the freethinkers and was elected to the state parliament in 1831 for the constituency of Weinsberg , where he belonged to the liberal opposition . In the 1833 election he was re-elected, but did not accept the mandate because the government denied him his leave, so that Heinrich Pfaff moved into the Chamber of Deputies. In 1833 his first book was published, a collection of songs , which increased his popularity. The book earned him praise from his colleagues as well as criticism. Wolfgang Menzel and Eduard Mörike admired it. From 1842 he was chief magistrate in Waiblingen .
Long forgotten as a poet, he still received attention through Mörike's poem To Karl Mayer and as an object of hate by Heinrich Heine . As a liberal, Mayer was on the side of the revolutionaries during the German Revolution of 1848/49 and advocated friendship with France and was an opponent of the Prussians . The democrat Mayer went to Frankfurt in 1848 to support his friend Uhland, who sat on the left in the National Assembly . Mayer very much regrets the unsuccessful end of the “ rump parliament ” in Stuttgart, and above all the “ reaction time ” that followed. Afterwards he even wrote political poems, which he only published after an amnesty for his son in 1864. Most recently he was senior judicial officer and retired in Tübingen. Nikolaus Lenau later calls him the "genius of friendship".
Mayer had married Friederike Drück (1792–1844) in 1818. The marriage resulted in seven children, including a son who was also named Karl Mayer (1819–1889). He was similarly minded and, in the decades after his return from exile in Switzerland, became one of the main figures of the Württemberg republicans (and a member of the Reichstag from 1881 to 1887).
meaning
Mayer was a master of natural poetry and was largely limited to this genre. Numerous spring poems sprang from his pen.
Works
- Karl Mayer: Album Swabian Poets, Volume 3: Karl Mayer. Tubingen 1864.
- Karl Mayer: Pictures on the hiking trails. Poems. Selected, introduced and commented on by Hans Mattern and Hans Feyrer. Sigmaringen 1993 (cultural-historical miniatures).
literature
- Peter Beisel: Karl Mayer, a Swabian poet from Neckarbischofsheim . In: Villa Biscovesheim, Neckarbischofsheim 988-1988 , Association for Home Care, Neckarbischofsheim 1988
- Karl Goedeke : Outline of the history of German poetry from the sources, Volume 3. Dresden 1881, pages 344-345, online .
- Hans Mattern : Poet of the Swabian Romanticism as a forerunner of the nature conservation idea . In: Suevica 9 (2004) [2005], pp. 307-324; here p. 314–317: "Karl Mayer (1786–1870); see p. 318–322“ Bibliography ”.
- [Karl] Bernhard Zeller: Karl Mayer d. Ä. (1786-1870) and the literary circles . In: Aufruhr und Abstagung (Vormärz 1815–1848 in Baden and Württemberg). Edited by Otto Borst. With contributions by Gad Arnsberg [among others]. Stuttgart 1992 (Stuttgarter Symposien, Vol. 2), pp. 256-280.
- Frank Raberg : Biographical handbook of the Württemberg state parliament members 1815-1933 . On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-016604-2 , p. 555-556 .
- Julius Hartmann: Mayer, Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 124.
- Ulrich Hötzer: Mayer, Karl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 530 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Paul Gehring: Hartmann, Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 733 f. ( Digitized version ). (Secondary entry)
Footnotes
- ↑ #Goedeke 1881 .
- ↑ #Mayer 1864 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl Mayer in the catalog of the German National Library
- He is a dull fly and sings of cockchafer by Tilman Krause in Die Welt on February 11, 2006
- Poems by Karl Mayer in the German Poetry Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mayer, Karl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mayer, Karl Friedrich Hartmann (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German lawyer, revolutionary and poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 22, 1786 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Neckarbischofsheim |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 25, 1870 |
| Place of death | Tübingen |