Wilhelm Neumann (writer)

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Friedrich Wilhelm Neumann , (born January 8, 1781 in Berlin , † October 9, 1834 in Brandenburg ), was a German poet , narrator , critic , editor and translator, as well as being a civil servant (directorate) in the Prussian War Ministry .

Youth and education

Wilhelm Neumann was born as the son of a businessman on January 8, 1781 in Berlin and attended grammar school there. Both parents died early, and the orphaned man came to the Cohen bank as a trading assistant, and the owner took him into the family. In 1803 he made the acquaintance of Karl August Varnhagen von Ense , who worked as a tutor for the Cohens. A small inheritance enabled him to attend the academic high school and the Johanneum in Hamburg with Varnhagen and August Neander , where they learned ancient languages from the director Johann Gottfried Gurlitt . In 1806 he moved with his two friends after Hall and studied theology at the local university until this autumn 1806 after student protests against the French occupation of Napoleon was closed command.

In 1807 Neumann stayed again in Berlin and taught as a tutor while he continued his studies, where he now devoted himself to camera science . At the beginning of 1813 he was employed as a bookseller's assistant in the company of his Nordstern federal brother Julius Eduard Hitzig .

First literary ventures

Neumann joined the Nordsternbund founded by Varnhagen and Adelbert von Chamisso in spring 1804. He participated in the so-called Green Muses Almanac and in the polemical Testimonia Auctorum, which was directed against Merkel's criticism of the Berlin Romanticism , that is: Paradiesgärtlein für Garlieb Merkel (1806). Together with Varnhagen, he published the volume Erzählungen und Spiele (1807) from the same group of poets . He contributed successful parodies of Johannes von Müller (who figures here as "Striezelmeyer") and Jean Paul to the collective novel The Trials and Obstacles of Charles , on which Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué and August Wilhelm Bernhardi also co-wrote in addition to Varnhagen .

Influenced by August Wilhelm Schlegel's lectures , Neumann turned to the Romance languages ​​and literatures and translated from Italian and French.

Wars of liberation, civil service career

Since his physical constitution was too weak to serve as a volunteer , Neumann reported to the field war commissariat when the wars of liberation broke out and, as a travel agent, organized food for the troops during three campaigns , for which he received the Iron Cross 2nd class on a white ribbon. In August 1815 he was appointed deputy war commissioner and stationed partly in Koblenz and partly in Trier , where he received support from the chief president Friedrich zu Solms-Laubach .

In 1818 Neumann was transferred to Berlin as a civil servant in the military administration and married Doris Mnioch (* 1797), the daughter of the poet Johann Jakob Mnioch, who died early and gave birth to five children. In April 1822 Neumann was appointed Royal Directorate of the Directorate of the Third Prussian Army Corps . In 1823 he participated in the collection of contemporary poets' judgments, which Varnhagen on the 75th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe under the title Goethe in the testimonies of those who lived with them. Supplement to all editions of Goethe's works .

In order to support his large family, with whom he lived at Lindenstrasse 116, he had to rely on secondary literary activities.

For a short time Neumann was a member of a committee to review the stage manuscripts submitted for the Royal Schaubühne . He played a leading role in organizing the Berlin celebrations for Ludwig Tieck's 60th birthday on May 31, 1833.

Literary reviews and Rahel publications

Wilhelm Neumann was a sought-after collaborator in the yearbooks for scientific criticism founded by Hegel , Eduard Gans and Varnhagen . Here he reviewed, among other things, the correspondence of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobis (1828, col. 140–154), the collected writings of Ludwig Börne (b. 1830, col. 481–494), the correspondence between Goethe and Zelter (b. 1834, col. 59–68) and Tutti Frutti by Fürst Pückler (born 1834, col. 701–711); His review of the poems of Ludwig I of Bavaria (born 1829, Col. 817–832) was praised by Goethe.

After the death of Rahel Varnhagen , the wife of his friend and witty salonière , he gave excerpts from her letters in August 1833, which until now were only available as private prints in a volume as Rahel. A souvenir book for her friends circulated, for the first time publicly in print. He also wrote a larger essay on Rahel's Religiosität , which first appeared from his estate in 1836 and was later included in the Varnhagen editions among the Rahel essays by various authors.

Early death

On the way back from a business trip to Magdeburg, Wilhelm Neumann died after a brief illness on October 9, 1834 in Brandenburg an der Havel. In the Varnhagen collection , whose manuscripts today in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska (the library of the University ) in Krakow are kept, most surviving letters and Testimonies are von Neumann. Varnhagen owned a collection of newspaper clippings from his contributions to the papers for literary entertainment .

editor

  • (with Karl August Varnhagen von Ense) Stories and games. Adolph Schmidt, Hamburg 1806
  • The Prussian fatherland friend. Berlin, February to June 1811
  • (with Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué) The Muses. A north German magazine. Berlin 1812-1824

Contribution to periodicals

  • Adelbert von Chamisso / Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (eds.): Musen-Almanach , Berlin 1804–1806
  • Journal for Criminal Law Care in the Prussian States , Berlin 1825–1833
  • Yearbooks for Scientific Criticism , Berlin 1826–1846
  • Leaves for literary entertainment , Leipzig 1826–1898

Works and translation

  • (with August Wilhelm Bernhardi, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, Karl August Varnhagen) Karl's attempts and obstacles. A German story from more recent times . First part. Georg Reimer, Berlin / Leipzig 1808
  • Nikolaus Machiavelli's Florentine History. Translated from the Italian. 2 vols., Weiss, Berlin 1809; 2nd edition. Härter, Vienna 1817 (library of historical classics from all nations, vol. 10 f.)
  • Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (ed.): Wilhelm Neumann's writings. 2 vol., FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1835
  • About Rahel's religiosity. From one of her old friends. Reichenbach, Leipzig 1836
  • Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. A biography. Cassel: Ernst Balde 1853.

Letters

  • Julius Eduard Hitzig (Ed.): Life and letters from Adelbert von Chamisso. New increased edition, 2 volumes. Weidmann'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1842 ( Adelbert von Chamisso's works . Vol. 5 and 6)
  • Albertine de La Motte Fouqué: Letters to Friedrich Baron de la Motte Fouqué . W. Adolf, Berlin 1848, p. 279 ff.
  • Ludwig Geiger: From the Varnhagen-Chamisso circle. Goethe-Jahrbuch 24 (1903), pp. 97-106
  • Ludwig Geiger: From Chamisso's early days. Unprinted letters and studies. Gebr Paetel, Berlin 1905

literature

  • Helmuth Rogge (Ed.) The double novel of the Berlin Romanticism. 2 vols., Klinkhardt and Biermann, Leipzig 1926
  • Friedrich Römer: Varnhagen von Ense as a romantic. Diss. Berlin 1934
  • Nikolaus Dorsch: Julius Eduard Hitzig. Literary patriarchy and civil career. A documentary biography between literature, book trade and court from 1780-1815. P. Lang, Frankfurt a. M. et al. 1994, ISBN 978-3-631-46441-0

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Address calendar on for the royal. Capital and residence cities Berlin and Potsdam to the year 1826. Reprinted by Helmut Schefer Verlag, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-89433-153-4 , p. 37
  2. ^ Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Wilhelm Neumann. In another: Works, Vol. 4: Biographies. Essays. Sketches. Fragments. Edited by Konrad Feilchenfeldt and Ursula Wiedenmann. German classic publishing house, Frankfurt a. M. 1990, ISBN 978-3-618-61585-9 , p. 311
  3. ^ Wilhelm Neumann: From Rahel's estate. In: Leaves for literary entertainment, No. 237–291 BC. 25.8.-18.10.1833, pp. 977 ff., 981 ff., 985 ff., 1193 ff., 1197 ff.
  4. ↑ See Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Memories and mixed writings. Vol. 8, ed. v. Ludmilla Assing. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1859, pp. 713–764
  5. ↑ Ludwig Stern: The Varnhagen von Ensesche collection in the Royal Library in Berlin. Behrend, Berlin 1911, p. 555

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Neumann, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Neumann, Friedrich Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet, storyteller, critic, editor and translator
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1781
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1834
Place of death Brandenburg