Georg Philipp Harsdörffer

Georg Philipp Harsdörffer (1 November 1607 – 17 September 1658) was a Jurist,^[1] Baroque-period German poet and translator.

Georg Philipp Harsdörffer
Georg Philipp Harsdörffer
Born	(1607-11-01)1 November 1607 Fischbach (Nuremberg)
Died	17 September 1658(1658-09-17) (aged 50) Nuremberg
Occupation	Poet, jurist, encyclopedist
Language	German, Latin
Education	Law
Alma mater	University of Altdorf University of Strassburg
Period	Baroque-era Germany
Genres	Concrete and constrained poetry treatise literary criticism sayings collection libretto translation
Literary movement	German Baroque, Nuremberg Poetic School

Life and career

Georg Philipp Harsdörffer was born in Nuremberg on 1 November 1607 into a patrician family.^[2] He studied law at Altdorf and Strassburg. He received a broad classical education in the home of his family before pursuing studies at the University of Strassburg^[2] where he studied under professor Matthias Bernegger.^[3] After completing his studies, he traveled through the Netherlands, England, France and Italy. While he was in Italy, he came into contact with members of learned academies. He shared his desire for reform in literary and linguistic for the improvement of moral and culture of the society.^[4]

Harsdörffer returned to Nuremberg in 1634. There he worked as a government assessor until 1655 when he was elected to the Nuremberg city council. During that time he became a vocal advocate for the purification of the German language.^[2] His knowledge of languages earned him the appellation "the learned."^[5] He was well-versed in contemporary French culture and literature.^[6] As an innovative poet, he was receptive to ideas from abroad.^[4] He is still known for his "Germanizations" of foreign-language terms.^[1] As a member of the Fruitbearing Society (Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft) he was called der Spielende (the player). In 1644 jointly with Johann Klaj he founded the Pegnesischer Blumenorden, a literary society, in Nuremberg. He was known by the name Strephon among the members of this order.^[5]

His writings in German and Latin fill fifty volumes, and a selection of his poems, which are mostly interesting for their form, can be found in Müller's Bibliothek deutscher Dichter des 17ten Jahrhunderts, vol. ix (Leipzig, 1826). Widmann (Altdorf, 1707) wrote a biography of him.^[5] His eight volume work, Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele (published from 1641-1649) contains a variety of literary works by Harsdörffer. Some of these texts are important to German music history; including Harsdörffer's libretto to Seelewig which is the oldest surviving German-language opera. That opera used music by composer Sigmund Theophil Staden who also used Harsdörffer as his librettist for the musical pageant Tugendsterne. The text to this work is also contained in the Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele.^[2]

In his Treatise to Protect the Work on the German Language (1644), he asserted that German ‘speaks with the tongues of nature.'^[7]

He was the father of Karl Gottlieb Harsdörffer (1637–1708).^[8]

Selected works

• Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele, 8 Bde. (1641–1649)
• Das geistlich Waldgedicht oder Freudenspiel, genant Seelewig (1644)
• Poetischer Trichter-die Teutsche Dicht- und Reimkunst ohne Behuf der lateinischen Sprache, in VI Stunden einzugießen (1647–1653)
• Hertzbewegliche Sonntagsandachten (1649–1652)
• Der Grosse Schau-Platz Jämmerlicher Mord-Geschichte (1649–1650)
• Der Grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehr-reicher Geschichte (1650–1651)
• Nathan und Jotham (1650–1651)
• Ars Apophthegmatica, 2 Bde. (1655–1656)

• 
  Emblem in his book Icones mortis

References

1. Grasnick, Armin (4 January 2022). Basics of Virtual Reality: From the Discovery of Perspective to VR Glasses. London: Springer Nature. p. 376. ISBN 978-3-662-64201-6. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
2. John H. Baron (2001). "Harsdörffer [Harsdörfer], Georg Philipp". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.12458.
3. Flint, Eric (1 October 2007). 1634: The Bavarian Crisis. Wake Forest, North Carolina: Baen Publishing Enterprises. p. NA. ISBN 978-1-618-24608-0. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
4. Kerth, Thomas (1 September 1996). Life's Golden Tree: Essays in German Literature from the Renaissance to Rilke. Berlin: Camden House. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-571-13080-8. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
5. Chisholm 1911, p. 30.
6. Plotke, Seraina (18 April 2018). Semantic Traces of Social Interaction from Antiquity to Early Modern Times: Historical Conversatio. Berlin: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-527-50987-0. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
7. Hirschi, Caspar (8 December 2011). The Origins of Nationalism: An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-139-50230-6. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2008-03-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Harsdörffer, Georg Philipp". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 29–30. This work in turn cites:
  • Julius Tittmann, Die Nürnberger Dichterschule (Göttingen, 1847)
  • Hodermann, Eine vornehme Gesellschaft, nach Harsdörffers "Gesprächspielen" (Paderborn, 1890)
  • T. Bischoff, "Georg Philipp Harsdörffer" in the Festschrift zur 1600 jahrigen Jubelfeier des Pegnesischen Blumenordens (Nuremberg, 1894)
  • Krapp, Die asthetischen Tendenzen Harsdörffers (Berlin, 1904).
• S. Taussig, C. Zittel (éds.), Japeta. Édition et traduction, Brepols Publishers, 2010, ISBN 978-2-503-52760-4
• Stefan Manns, Grenzen des Erzählens. Konzeption und Struktur des Erzählens in Georg Philipp Harsdörffers "Schauplätzen". Berlin 2013 (= Deutsche Literatur. Studien und Quellen; 14); ISBN 978-3-05-006424-6 (zugl. Univ. Dissertation, FU Berlin 2010).

External links

Media related to Georg Philipp Harsdörffer at Wikimedia Commons