Meta Forkel love child
Sophie Margarethe "Meta" Forkel-Liebeskind , b. Sophie Margarethe Dorothea Wedekind (born February 22, 1765 in Göttingen , † 1853 in Eichstätt ) was a German writer and translator .
Life
Youth and first marriage
Her father was the Göttingen pastor and professor Rudolph Wedekind , her brother the physician Georg Freiherr von Wedekind . In the family she was called “Gretgen”, but she called herself “ Meta ” (also a short form of Margarethe). She is one of the group known as the “ university ladies ” group of Göttingen learned daughters of the 18th century.
In the learned atmosphere of her parents 'home, Meta received an education that went far beyond the girls' education that was customary at the time. So equipped, she went a self-determined path that was rarely encountered for women of her time, which was reflected in her private life and in her works. Her circle of friends and acquaintances included numerous scholars of the time, such as Georg Forster , Gottfried August Bürger , Jean Paul and Caroline Schelling .
Meta Wedekind married the musicologist Johann Nikolaus Forkel on June 10, 1781 at the age of 16, but soon separated from him and moved with their son Karl Gottlieb, born in 1782, to relatives in Einbeck . In the rural tranquility of Einbeck she wrote Maria , a novel in 2 volumes, which appeared anonymously in 1784, corresponds to the average of the time and received no further attention, apart from the fact that in Göttingen, which apparently forms the background of the story, it was used as a roman a clef grasped.
Citizen's Furciferaria
When she returned to Göttingen she had an affair with Gottfried August Bürger , which lasted about a year and after which the poet reviled her in ridiculous poems and letters in which he called her Furciferaria , which on the one hand comes from the Latin furca "Forke" = Forkel, on the other hand from furcifer “gallows rope”, actually “forked cross carrier”, is derived from a Roman shameful punishment for slaves. Here it was also an ambiguous allusion to the vulva . It was obviously offensive to citizens that Meta Forkel had not committed adultery with him exclusively. Citizen's friend Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer wrote from the point of view of libertine :
- Regarding the Furciferaria, which I certainly do not like because it was always too dirty for me, nor did I know how to dress, I cannot judge like you. That she loved and enjoyed several at the same time harmonizes very well with my principles; I do this as well as I can and know, and I confess to you I find such satisfaction that since I experienced this I have made a kind of estimate for you. The only ruthlessness of her procedure lies in the fact that she hid the greatness of her soul from you and did not invite you to similar excursions, so that from time to time you might meet each other as victors and mock the deceived one-sided love of others.
Under these circumstances, Meta Forkel preferred to go to Berlin with her new lover, the theology student Carl Günther Friedrich Seidel.
In Berlin she received translation assignments through the agency of the writer Johann Jacob Engel and she began to translate works from English and French. In the summer of 1789 she left Berlin and moved to her brother Georg Wedekind , who was a professor of medicine at the University of Mainz . Caroline Schelling and Georg Forster, from whom Meta Forkel received further translation jobs, also lived there at the time. Some translations, e.g. B. Anburey's travels in Inner America appeared under Forster's name, although the proportion of each of the two contributors is difficult to determine today.
In September 1789 she returned to Göttingen in order to sort out her property affairs, which, despite her numerous and extensive translations, remained precarious. This was also because her husband not only used up her dowry, but also embezzled her translation fees. Nevertheless, Meta Forkel refrained from a divorce for the time being.
Republic of Mainz and imprisonment
In Gottingen she met Johann Heinrich Liebeskind , a musically talented students of the law , to know and fell in love with him. She was pregnant in early 1792 and retired to Frensdorf near Bamberg until her son Adalbert was born on October 2, 1792 . On October 19, she arrived in Mainz, where she was staying with Caroline Böhmer , who later became Caroline Schelling.
Due to the close connection there with Georg Forster and her brother Georg, who were both founding members of the Mainz Jacobin Club , she and her friend Caroline were drawn into the turbulent events surrounding the Mainz Republic - without being directly involved . When the end of it became apparent, Forster had left for Paris and Wedekind had fled to Landau. The women, ie Meta Forkel, her mother, sister-in-law Wilhelmine Wedekind and Caroline Böhmer, tried to escape to Frankfurt on March 30, but were arrested behind Oppenheim . Wilhelmine Wedekind was the wife of Georg Wedekind and Caroline Böhmer was thought to be the wife of Georg Böhmer , another leading Jacobin from Mainz, because of the similarity of names .
The women were first brought to Hattersheim , then to Frankfurt and finally to the Königstein Fortress . They were not released until mid-July. Liebeskind stayed in Königstein during the time of her imprisonment, as can be seen from his recollections , a report of his experiences during this time. According to Liebeskind, the continued imprisonment was justified by the fact that the women were to be used as hostages in exchange for the Mainz hostages who were deported to France by the French. Somewhat stunned, he wrote:
“I absolutely do not yet understand how it was possible to look at them from this point of view. The Germans illegally use German women, who had neither been assigned nor accused of participating in French affairs, as scourges against the fortress, against citizens of Mainz who the French had sent to France as scourges (against German women ) to be changed! "
After Meta Forkel was freed from fortress custody, she and Liebeskind set out for East Prussia, where Liebeskind was to take up his first position.
Marriage with love child
On February 11, 1794, the marriage with Forkel had been divorced, and in the same year Meta achieved a revision of the divorce decree, which allowed her to remarry to Liebeskind. She was now Liebeskind's wife and became a mother several times in the years to come: four sons survived: Adalbert, Friedrich (born January 14, 1798), Ferdinand (born April 27, 1800) and Heinrich Ludwig (born May 6, 1802). A daughter Antonia, born in 1794, was only 4 years old. In 1802 the couple took in Wilhelmine Rosalie Knebel (born November 18, 1794 in Kronstadt), a great niece of Karl Ludwig von Knebel , as a ward.
In the following decades she accompanied her husband on the stations of his civil servant career. The first employment in 1793 in Riga as a consultant in the Russian service was short-lived, as the Liebeskind couple were suspected of Jacobinism and expelled. The next stages were: 1794 Königsberg (now as Prussian criminal investigator ), 1797 Ansbach ( government councilor ), 1807 Bamberg ( senior judicial officer ), 1808 Munich ( senior appellate judge), 1827 Landshut (second appellate court director), 1829 Ansbach, 1832 Landshut (first appellate court director), 1833 Ansbach and 1838 Eichstätt , where (from) Liebeskind retired in the same year and the couple spent the last few years.
In the years of their second, happy marriage, Meta Liebeskind was not only a mother and civil servant's wife, but also continued to work very productively as a translator, had contacts, for example, with Jean Paul and Hegel in Franconia and Schelling in Munich and repeatedly went on trips and extended visits without her husband , e.g. B. with Caroline Schelling (formerly Böhmer) or with her brother in Darmstadt . From 1824 she regularly stayed in Baden-Baden for a cure in the summer . In 1837 she became seriously ill there, was picked up by her husband and did not undertake any major trips in recent years.
Her husband died in 1847, and she herself died in Eichstätt in 1853.
Works
- (anonymous) Original letter from a mother of eighteen to a friend when she wrote to her for the first time after giving birth . In: Hannoversches Magazin , 101th piece, Friday, December 19th, 1783, Col. 1609–1612.
- (anonymous) Maria. A story in letters (2 vols .; Leipzig 1784)
Translations:
- Louise-Félicité de Kéralio: History of Queen Elizabeth of England . (Original title: Histoire d'Elizabeth, pure d'Angleterre . 6 vols., Of which vols. 1 and 2 translated by Forkel; 1788)
- Pierre Raymond de Brisson: History of the shipwreck and captivity of the Lord of Brisson in the administration of the colonies. With a description of the African deserts from Senegal to Morocco. Preface, revision of the trans. Georg Forster. Andreä, Eisenach and Frankfurt 1790. ( Histoire du naufrage et de la captivité de M ..., officier de l'administration des colonies. 1789)
- Constantin François Volney : The ruins or reflections on the revolutions of the empires (1791; new edition: Syndikat, Frankfurt 1977)
- (anonymous) The Bastille or Karl Towley. A novel from around the world. (4 vols., Leipzig 1790)
- Lady Carlisle [ie Isabella Howard, daughter of Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle]: For young women to make themselves and their future husbands happy. Along with an attempt by the translator on feminine delicacy. (Leipzig 1791; Original title: Thoughts in the form of maxims addressed to young ladies on their first establishment in the world )
- Ann Radcliffe : The Nocturnal Apparitions at Manzini Castle (1791)
- Elizabeth Inchbald : A Simple Story (Leipzig 1791)
- Jane Elisabeth Purbeck: Honorie Sommerville (4 vols., Leipzig 1791, original title: Honoria Sommerville. A novel )
- (anonymous) Hermione or The Revenge of Fate. (1791)
- Francis Peter Plowden (?): Sketch of the government of George the Third from 1780 to the end of 1790. (Original title: A Sketch of the reign of George the Third from 1780, to the close of the year 1790 ; Leipzig 1791)
- Thomas Paine : Human Rights . Preface Georg Forster . Voss, Berlin 1792
- (with Forster) Thomas Anburey: Travels in America . Magazine of strange new travelogues, translated from foreign languages and accompanied with explanatory notes. Vol. 6. Vossische Buchhandlung , Berlin 1792
- Charlotte Turner Smith : Celestine (1793)
- Charlotte Turner Smith: Desmond (1793)
- (anonymous) The St Valery Castle , a ghost story from the times of Richard the Lionheart (1793, original title: The Castle of St. Vallery )
- David Ramsay : History of the American Revolution from the Acts of the Congress of the United States (4 vols., Berlin 1794ff)
- William Godwin : Caleb Williams (1795)
- Ann Radcliffe: Udolpho's Secrets (1795, Original Title: The Mysteries of Udolpho )
- Charlotte Turner Smith: Marchmont (Leipzig 1797)
- James Boswell : Memories from Samuel Johnson's Life (Königsberg 1797)
- Ann Radcliffe: Die Italienerin, or the confessional of the black penitents ( The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents ; 3 vols., Königsberg 1797–1799)
- Ann Radcliffe: Adeline or the adventures in the forest (Original title: Adeline, or, The romance of the forest ; Vienna)
- Jane Elizabeth Purbeck: Mathilde and Elisabeth (1799)
- Madame du Deffand : Anecdotes and judgments about strange people In: Morgenblatt für educated estates 1812
swell
- Johann Heinrich Liebeskind : Recollections of a trip through part of Germany, Prussia, Courland and Livonia - during the stay of the French in Mainz and the unrest in Poland. Strasburg / Königsberg 1795 ( digitized version ).
literature
- Eckart Kleßmann : Universitätsmamsellen: five enlightened women between rococo, revolution and romanticism. The Other Library Vol. 281. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-8218-4588-3
- Monika Siegel: "I had a penchant for enthusiasm ..." The life of the writer and translator Meta Forkel-Liebeskind as reflected in her time. Dissertation, Technische Universität Darmstadt, 2001 Online (PDF; 5.0 MB)
Web links
- Literature by and about Meta Forkel-Liebeskind in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by Meta Forkel-Liebeskind at Zeno.org .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kleßmann Universitätsmamsellen 2008 p. 98
- ^ Baptism on April 21, 1782
- ^ Letter from Meyers dated April 14, 1789. Quoted in: Siegel: Schwärmerey 2001, p. 84
- ↑ Kleßmann Universitätsmamsellen 2008 p. 102f
- ↑ The Germersheim Translator's Lexicon is based on Forster as the main translator.
- ↑ Kleßmann Universitätsmamsellen 2008, pp. 174f
- ↑ Recollections , pp. 84f.
- ^ Siegel I had a penchant for enthusiasm 2001, p. 227
- ↑ Siegel I had a penchant for enthusiasm 2001, pp. 255ff
- ↑ According to Monika Siegel's dissertation p. 231, an exact date of death and entry in the Eichstätt church register could not be determined. According to Kleßmann, its trace is lost after 1837.
- ↑ The author is still unclear to this day, the specialist literature only states "anonymously". As a lawyer, Plowden actually had a clerical, Jesuit focus of interest.
- ↑ No. 199, p. 795, No. 200, p. 799 f., No. 201, p. 803 and No. 202, p. 806, year 1812
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Forkel love child, Meta |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Forkel-Liebeskind, Sophie Margarethe; Wedekind, Sophie Margarethe Dorothea (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German writer and translator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 22, 1765 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Goettingen |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1853 |
| Place of death | Eichstatt |