George Ticknor

George Ticknor ( born August 1, 1791 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States; † January 26, 1871 ) was an American academic who specialized in linguistics and literature. He has become especially through his work with regard to the history of Spanish literature and literary criticism to known.

Life

George Ticknor received his early education from his father Elisha (1757-1821), the director of a public school and founder of the Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company, the system of free primary schools in Boston and the first savings bank in New England was.

From 1805, he attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1807. The next few years studied Ticknor at John Sylvester John Gardiner, Samuel Parr Latin and Greek before he took up in 1810 to study law. Three years later he was admitted to the bar. Ticknor opened an office in his home town, but gave this up after a year and went to Europe in 1815, where he studied at the University of Göttingen for almost two years. After his return he was appointed in 1817 as Professor of French and Spanish as well as the Belles Lettres at Harvard University. After a period of study in France, Spain and Portugal in 1819 he took on the teaching. During this time he joined the division of students according to Fortschrittsgard and regorganisierte his own chair. In 1835 he gave up his professorship and went again to Europe for three years; his successor at Harvard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was.

After his return to the United States, he devoted himself to the most important activity in his life, the history and criticism of Spanish literature, where he broke new ground in many ways. In his lectures he built the scheme of his work History of Spanish Literature ( New York and London, 1849, 3 vols, 4th ed 1872), in which he utilized the results of thirty years of studies.

This then- standard work has been translated into Spanish 1851-1857 by Pascual de Gayangos y Arce, the translation into German worried Nicholas Heinrich Julius and Ferdinand Wolf ( Leipzig. 1867, 2 vols ). Between 1854 and 1888 five new editions published. The third edition of 1863 was expanded and corrected, the fourth of 1872 contained the final version of the author himself Furthermore Ticknor wrote a biography of Lafayette and the historian Prescott (1863, new ed 1882).

In addition to his academic work was Ticknor succeeded his father as a member of the Primary School Board (1822-1825), 1823-1832 was on the board of Boston Athenaeum, and in 1833 its deputy director from 1827 to 1835 and director from 1841 to 1862 and deputy director of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company. He was also a 1826-1830 board member of the Massachusetts General Hospital and the 1830-1850 Boston Provident Institution for Savings, which had co-founded his father. He was particularly involved in the 1852 founding of the Boston Public Library, and was from 1852 to 1866 in its Executive Board in 1865 as Chairman. In his life, he donated this library multiply money and books and bequeathed his own collection of books, which mainly contained Spanish and Portuguese literature.

Ticknor died on January 26, 1871.

Works

Other works Ticknors include:

• Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the History and Criticism of Spanish Literature ( 1823)
• Outline of the Principal Events in the Life of General Lafayette ( 1825)
• Remarks on Changes Lately Proposed or Adopted in Harvard University ( 1825)
• The Remains of Nathan Appleton Haven, with a Memoir of his Life (1827 )
• Remarks on the Life and Writings of Daniel Webster (1831 )
• Lecture on the Best Methods of Teaching the Living Languages, delivered in 1832, before the American Institute of Education
• Life of William Hickling Prescott ( 1864).