Samuel Singer

Samuel Singer (born July 12, 1860 in Vienna ; died December 5, 1948 in Bern ) was a Swiss Germanist of Austrian origin with a research focus on medieval studies . He also did fundamental research in the field of fairy tales and legends , and decades later his collection of medieval proverbs resulted in the 13-volume Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi .

Life

Singer, son of the businessman Adolf Singer and Regine, born in Frankfurt, attended the Academic Gymnasium in Vienna from 1869–1877 and studied law, philosophy, history and economics at the local university from 1877–1884 , from 1833 also the subjects of German, Romance studies and English. In 1881/82 he passed the legal state examination in Vienna. In 1884 he received his doctorate (without a dissertation) with Wilhelm Erich Wahlberg in law, in 1885 with Richard Heinzel with a thesis on fragments of a dictionary of Germanic languages in German philology. He then created the critical apparatus for the edition of Goethe's Unequal Housemates at the Goethe Institute in Weimar ; In 1886/87 he was a guest student in Leipzig , in 1887/88 in Berlin . Because of his Jewish origins, he saw little opportunity for an academic career in Austria and therefore emigrated to Switzerland, where he completed his habilitation in Germanic philology and German language and literature at the University of Bern in 1891 (without a habilitation thesis) .

In Bern, Singer first worked as a private lecturer and taught from 1896 as an extraordinary professor, from 1904 as a full professor, comparative literary history and legends . In 1910 he became professor there for German Philology and Literature of the Middle Ages . From 1907 until his retirement in 1930, Singer also served as director of the old German department of the Germanic seminar in Bern, and in 1913 and 1914 as dean of the philosophical-historical faculty.

In 1921 he received Swiss citizenship and thus gave up Austrian citizenship .

Create

One focus of Singer's research was the German-language (including Swiss) literature of the Middle Ages. His broad knowledge and interests, which also included issues of legal history and folklore, enabled his studies to be “ embedded in a comparative way ”. He also earned great merit in researching fairy tales and with several studies on Wolfram von Eschenbach . He also worked as an editor and mediator of Middle High German literature.

His collection of medieval proverbs formed the basis for the Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi , which was first published in 1995 and which, according to Singer's conception, is not just a mere reference work. Rather, he considered the uniformity of the medieval spiritual world, "based on the same Christian religion, overbuilt by the same Latin language and education, connected to ancient humanity", as an example of overcoming nationalistic limitations.

Singer was a founding member, later a board member, temporarily vice president and finally president of the Swiss Society for Folklore and a member of the Society for German Language and Literature in Zurich.

His estate is in the Bern Burger Library .

Works (selection)

A detailed compilation of Samuel Singer's works can be found in the Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors, Volume 19, pp. 271–279, a complete list of writings compiled by Marta Marti for the period 1884–1930 the Festgabe für Samuel Singer, 1930, pp. 204– 217.

Fonts

• Legendary parallels from the Babylonian Talmud. In: Journal of the Association for Folklore 2, 1892, pp. 293–301.
• Apollonius of Tire . Investigations into the survival of the ancient novel in later times. Hall a. S. 1895, reprint Hildesheim / New York 1974.
• Swiss fairy tale. Beginning of a commentary on the published Swiss fairy tale literature. 2 issues, Bern 1903–1906, reprint Berlin 1971.
• Wolfram's style and the stuff of Parzival . Vienna 1916 (Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna - Philosophical-historical class. Meeting reports, Volume 180, 4th treatise).
• Literary history of German Switzerland in the Middle Ages. A lecture followed by explanations and explanations. Bern 1916, reprint Nendeln 1970.
• Wolfram's Willehalm . Bern 1918.
• The St. Gallen School of Poetry. Frauenfeld / Leipzig 1922 ( Switzerland in German Spiritual Life 5).
• Swiss German. Frauenfeld / Leipzig 1928 (Switzerland in German Spiritual Life 28).
• The medieval literature of German Switzerland. Frauenfeld / Leipzig 1930 (Switzerland in the German Spiritual Life 66/67).
• The religious literature of the Middle Ages (The afterlife of the Psalms). Bern 1933 (New Year's sheet of the Literary Society Bern N. F. 10).
• Germanic-Romanesque Middle Ages. Articles and lectures. Zurich / Leipzig 1935.
• Proverbs of the Middle Ages from the beginning to the 14th century. 3 volumes, 1944–1947.
• New Parzival Studies. Zurich / Leipzig 1937.
• Wolfram and the Grail. New Parzival Studies. Bern 1939 (Writings of the Literary Society Bern N. F. 11).
• [Reason from:] Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi. Lexicon of proverbs of the Romano-Germanic Middle Ages. Edited by the Singer Board of Trustees of Switzerland. 13 volumes. De Gruyter, Berlin 1995-2002.

Editions and adaptations

• Willehalm. A knight poem from the second half of the 13th century by Master Ulrich von dem Türlin. Prague 1893 (Library of Middle High German Literature in Bohemia IV).
• [together with Albert Bachmann :] German folk books from a Zurich manuscript of the 15th century. Tübingen 1889 (library of the Litterarian Society in Stuttgart CLXXXV).
• Heinrich's von Neustadt "Apollonius vonTyrland" after the Gotha manuscript, "God's future" and "Visio Philiberti" after the Heidelberg manuscript. Berlin 1906 (German texts from the Middle Ages VII), reprint Dublin / Zurich 1967.
• Contributions to the knowledge of the Bern German verb. In: Zeitschrift für Hochdeutsche Mundarten 2 (1901), pp. 13-25 [ Goldbach im Emmenthal and the city ​​of Bern and the surrounding area, by H. Haldimann, F. Balsiger and H. Wäber]; ibid. pp. 226–36 [ St. Stephan im Simmenthal, by H. Zahler]; 6 (1905), pp. 65-83 [ Herzogenbuchsee in Oberaargau, by Friedrich Born].
• [together with Johannes Jegerlehner :] Legends and fairy tales from Upper Valais. Collected from the vernacular. Basel / Strasbourg 1913 (writings of the Swiss Society for Folklore 9).
• The Tannhauser . Tubingen 1922.
• [with the assistance of Marga Bauer and Gertrud Sattler:] Middle High German reading book. Texts of the fourteenth century. Bern 1945.

Collaboration on hand dictionaries

• General German biography , article Heinrich von dem Türlin; Ulrich von dem Türlin.
• Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz , article Hartmann von Aue; Dietrich von Bern.
• Concise dictionary of German superstition , article Bilwis; Eckart; Else; England; Erec; eternal carter.
• Concise dictionary of the German fairy tale , article Cinderella; Learning to fear.
• Author's Lexicon - The German Literature of the Middle Ages , Article Albrecht von Rapperswil; Eberhard von Sax; Gliers; Goli; Johannes Hadlaub; Heinrich von Neustadt; Heinrich von Sax; Johann von Rinkenberg; Power of Toggenburg.

Editing

• [together with Harry Maync , later also Fritz Strich :] Series Language and Poetry. Research on linguistics and linguistics 1 (1910) - 72 (1948).

Honors

• Commemoration for Samuel Singer, presented on July 12, 1930 by friends and students. Edited by Gustav Keller and Marta Marti. by Harry Maync . Tubingen 1930.
• Corona. Studies in Celebration of the Eightieth Birthday of Samuel Singer prof. Emeritus, University of Berne, Switzerland. Edited by Arno Schirokauer and Wolfgang Paulsen . Durham, North Carolina, 1941.

literature

• Angelo Garovi : Singer, Samuel. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz ., Volume 11, pp. 525-526.
• Thomas Rausch: Singer, Samuel. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 3: R-Z. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1744-1746.
• R. Schoeller:  Singer Samuel, Germanist. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 12, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2001-2005, ISBN 3-7001-3580-7 , p. 300.
• [no name:] Singer, Samuel. In: German Biographical Encyclopedia , Volume 9, p. 472.
• Singer, Samuel. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 19: Sand – Stri. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. De Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-598-22699-1 , pp. 269-279.

Web links

• Publications by and about Samuel Singer in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Literature by and about Samuel Singer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Samuel Singer in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors specifies as "Middle High German", the Austrian Biographical Lexicon and the International Dictionary of Germanists as "New High German".
2. ^ "1930" according to the Austrian Biographical Lexicon, Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors, International Germanist Lexicon and Historical Lexicon of Switzerland; the statement "1939" in the German Biographical Encyclopedia is incorrect.
3. ↑ Austrian Biographical Lexicon; the entire formulation there is taken verbatim from the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
4. ↑ Ricarda Liver: A lexicon of proverbs of the Romano-Germanic Middle Ages. Thesaurus proverbiorum medii aevi.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - UniPress 114, October 2002, accessed October 14, 2015.  
5. ^ Samuel Singer in the catalog of the Burgerbibliothek Bern .