Otto Apelt

Otto Apelt (born December 29, 1845 in Jena , † December 5, 1932 in Dresden ) was a German classical philologist , translator and high school teacher.

life and work

Otto Apelt was the son of the philosopher and entrepreneur Ernst Friedrich Apelt (1812-1859) and his wife Emilie geb. from Otto. He had been married to Cornelia Rassow since 1873, the daughter of the Weimar high school director Hermann Rassow (1819–1907) and Mathilde geb. Weimar. They had three children: Elisabeth (1874–1946), Hermann (1876–1960) and Mathilde Apelt (born December 14, 1880).

Apelt attended the Stoy'sche institute in Jena and the grammar school in Weimar. He then studied from 1865 to 1869 classical philology and philosophy at the universities of Jena , Leipzig and Berlin . In Jena he was awarded a Dr. phil. doctorate, he passed the senior teacher exam in Berlin. After completing his studies, Apelt started teaching: from 1869 to 1898 as a senior teacher and later a grammar school professor at the Wilhelm-Ernst grammar school in Weimar , from 1898 to 1904 as director of the Eisenach grammar school, and from Easter 1904 as director of the grammar school in Jena. At Easter 1909 he retired as Privy Councilor and moved to Dresden, where he died in 1932, very old.

Greek philosophy has been Apelt's focus since his studies. He wrote several treatises on Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy while he was still in service . In retirement he devoted himself to his life's work, translating and commenting on all of Plato's writings. His translation was published from 1916 to 1937 by the Leipzig publisher Felix Meiner in the Philosophical Library series , in several volumes, some with three editions, and was widespread despite the rather negative attitude of the professional world. The work was last reprinted in six volumes in 2004. In addition to Plato, Apelt also translated the works of Diogenes Laertios ( Life and Opinions of Famous Philosophers , two volumes, Leipzig 1921), the 1st Declamation of Libanios ( Libanius: Apologie des Sokrates , Leipzig 1922), the philosophical writings of Seneca (four volumes, Leipzig 1923–1924), selected elegies by Properz (Munich 1925) and selected morals by Plutarch (Leipzig 1926–1927).

literature

• Who is it Our contemporaries , 9th edition (1928), p. 29
• Adalbert Brauer: The beginnings of the Apelt family from Kunnersdorf near Friedland in Bohemia in Upper Lusatia in Electoral Saxony . In: Archives for kin research and all related areas . Volume 40 (1974), pp. 444-449 (on Otto Apelt, p. 449)

Web links

Wikisource: Otto Apelt  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by Otto Apelt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Otto Apelt  in the German Digital Library