Ernst Robert Curtius

Ernst Robert Curtius ( born April 14, 1886 in Thann (Alsace ), † April 19, 1956 in Rome) was a scholar, linguist and grandson of philologists and archaeologists Ernst Curtius.

Curtius established the study of the Latin Middle Ages in the literature, is considered one of the preeminent experts in the field of medieval literature and is one of the most important representatives of German Romance.

Life

Ernst Robert Curtius was the son of Friedrich Curtius and the Swiss patrician Louise Curtius, born Countess von Erlach Hindelbank. He spent his school and study time in Colmar and Strasbourg, where he also studied Romance languages ​​and was awarded his doctorate in 1910 with Gustav Grober ( introduction to a new edition of the livre des Quatre rice ). Three years later he completed his habilitation in 1913 in Bonn ( Ferdinand Brunetière ). During the First World War he was an officer at the front. After the war he became an associate professor in Bonn in 1919 and 1920, full professor at the University of Marburg in 1924 and full professor at the University of Heidelberg.

1929 returned Curtius as a professor of Romance and later also for Medieval Latin Philology at the University of Bonn, where he taught until his retirement in 1951. From 1947 to 1951, the later literary critic Walter Boehlich was his assistant. Curtius venerated especially Goethe, but also maintained close contact with contemporary European writers such as André Gide, TS Eliot and Ortega y Gasset. He was an early advocate for Marcel Proust and criticized the first German translations of Rudolf Schottländer sharp. During the period of National Socialism, he dealt with the unsuspecting subject of the Latin poetry of the Middle Ages and retained his chair. With its publication European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, he sat down in 1948 as one of the leading literary scholars of the postwar period through and chief representative of the topos research. After his retirement he moved to Rome.

Curtius was in 1930 a member of the advisory board of the German Abraham Lincoln Foundation (ALS), an offshoot of the Rockefeller Foundation. In addition to these academic understanding the Franco-German relations were a matter of concern to him. He defined it, similar to Arnold Bergstraesser strictly elitist, both initiators and was concerned what the participants in the exchange and other events. When after 1928 on the French side, a Ligue d' Études germaniques, especially among teachers arose, Curtius raged against the " subaltern scribblers " Christian Sénéchal, then among other things a teacher who had dared to criticize the elite concept. The produce Curtius 's view, ' only' of vanity, stupidity and resentment born insinuations ".

With the Ernst Robert Curtius Prize for essay writing, donated in 1984 by the Bonn bookseller and publisher Thomas Grundmann, not only his scientific work is honored. Thus we read in the statutes of the foundation: " In particular, with his essays, he has (also) contributed to a new understanding of common European intellectual history. "

The honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne was one of many honors that have been bestowed on him after 1945. In 1951 he receives the Goethe Medal of the City of Frankfurt am Main.

Works

• Curtius: Sociology - and their limits. In: Volker Meja and Nico Stehr (ed.): The dispute about the sociology of knowledge. Volume 2: Reception and criticism of the sociology of knowledge. Frankfurt 1982, p 417-426. First appeared in: New Swiss Rundschau 22 ( October 1929 ), pp. 727-736.
• Karl Mannheim: On the problem of sociology in Germany. Add dsb. Sociology of knowledge. Selection from the work, eingeleit. and ed. by Kurt H. Wolff, Berlin 1964, pp. 614-624. First appeared in: New Swiss Rundschau 22 ( November 1929 ), pp. 820-829.