Moritz Schmidt

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Photography by Moritz Schmidt.

Moritz Wilhelm Constantin Schmidt , also Moriz Wilhelm Constantin Schmidt (born November 19, 1823 in Breslau , † October 8, 1888 in Jena ) was a German classical philologist who worked as a professor at the University of Jena from 1857.

Life

Moritz Schmidt was born on November 19, 1823 as the son of the Higher Regional Court Councilor Moriz Wilhelm Eduard Schmidt and his wife Bianca born. du Vignau was born in Breslau. After the family moved to Schweidnitz for professional reasons in 1826, the young Schmidt received private lessons and in 1831 entered the grammar school in Schweidnitz. It was there that he discovered his inclination for the ancient languages Latin and Ancient Greek and decided to study classical philology years before graduating.

At Easter 1840 he left the grammar school with the school leaving certificate and began studying at the University of Breslau under Friedrich Haase (1808–1867). In 1841 he moved to the Berlin University , where the famous classical philologists Karl Lachmann and August Böckh worked at the time . In Berlin he also acquired extensive philosophical and historical knowledge and took part in the meetings of the Sunday Literary Society Tunnel over the Spree . In February 1844 he received his doctorate with his treatise "De dithyrambo poetisque dithyrambicis" (On the dithyrambus and the dithyrambic poets) and passed the examination for the higher education office in August. However, the Silesian school authorities initially refused to teach him because of his youth (Schmidt was only twenty years old). For this reason, he studied the ancient grammarians and poets, especially Pindar , in self-study in the following years . From 1846 he worked for the magazine Philologus .

At Easter 1847 he started his probationary year at the Schweidnitzer Gymnasium and in May 1849 went to Oels , where, in addition to teaching at the Oels Gymnasium, he concentrated on Greek grammarians. The focus of these studies was the dictionary of Hesychios of Alexandria . In 1856 he published the first text “specimen Hesychii editionis” , then the lexicon itself in five volumes from 1858–1868. This edition was considered authoritative and remained in use for a long time. From 1913 Kurt Latte worked on a new edition, the completion of which, however, was delayed for various reasons. After Latte's death (1964), Peter Allan Hansen completed the edition in 1987 (completed in 2009).

Schmidt became an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Jena at the beginning of the summer semester of 1857 , received a full honorary professorship on April 25, 1864, and became a full professor of classical philology on April 1, 1869. In addition, he was professor of rhetoric from the summer semester of 1874 until the end of the summer semester of 1882, was director of the philological seminar and was appointed councilor of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach. In the winter semester of 1876, as rector of the Alma Mater, he also took part in the organizational tasks of the Salana. In Jena he devoted himself to language and dialect research, especially to the monuments of the Lycian language . His edition of the Lycian inscriptions based on copies by A. Schönborn (1868) was preceded by studies “On the decipherment of the Lycian linguistic monuments” ; in 1869 and 1881 he wrote again on this subject. An important merit of these years is his deciphering of the Cypriot script , which he presented in his book "The Inscription of Idalion and the Cypriot Syllabar" (1874). His metrical studies mainly concerned Pindar's victorious chants: “Pindar's Olympic Victory Chants Greek and German” (1869), “About the Construction of the Pindarian Stanzas” (1882). Here, however, he could not clearly solve the metric difficulties. His editions and translations were well received.

In the 1970s he gained international recognition for his work; however, his health deteriorated rapidly after 1878. On May 30, 1885, he suffered a stroke and died on October 8, 1888.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Diatribe in dithyrambum 1845 in the Google book search
  • Suggestions for improvement to some difficult passages in Aeschylus' Agamemnon 1864 in the Google Book Search USA
  • New Lycian Studies in Google Book Search USA in 1869
  • The inscription of Idalion and the Cypriot syllabar , Jena 1874 in the Google book search USA
  • About the construction of the Pindarian stanzas , Leipzig 1892 in the Google book search USA

Editions

  • Didymi Chalcenteri grammatici alexandrini fragmenta quae supersunt omnia 1854 in the Google book search
  • Hesychii Alexandrini lexicon post Iohannem Albertum Volume 1: 1858 in the Google book search
  • Hygini Fabulae , Jena 1872 in the Google Book Search USA
  • Sophocles Antigone together with the Scholia of Laurentianus 1880 in the Google Book Search USA

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Moritz Schmidt  - sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Moritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schmidt, Moritz Wilhelm Constantin (full name); Schmidt, Moriz Wilhelm Constantin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1888
Place of death Jena