Hermann Weller
Hermann Weller ( born February 4, 1878 in Schwäbisch Gmünd, † December 9, 1956 in Tübingen ) was a German Indologist and Neo-Latin poet. He was known as " Horace the 20th century".
Life
Weller was one of nine children of an industrial businessman and a baker's daughter and grew up in Schwäbisch Gmünd. 1890 Weller became a full orphan and was raised with his siblings by the maid of the family. He first visited the Gmuender Real Lyceum, then changed to the Latin school to Bad Mergentheim and put 1897 Ehinger convict the school leaving examination. Then Weller studied at the universities of Berlin and Tübingen first law then later Classical Languages . In 1901 he received his doctorate to Dr. phil. in Latin and Sanskrit.
The classical scholar taught after completing state examinations in Latin, Greek, French and Hebrew, from 1913 to 1931 as a teacher at the Gymnasium in Ellwangen as well as at the high school Ehingen active. Among the languages in which he taught himself Weller was characterized by in-depth knowledge in English, Italian, Indian and Persian. 1931 Weller had to retire for health reasons, and he returned to Tübingen, where he habilitated in 1930. There he worked first as a lecturer, then as Honorary Professor of Indian literature, Sanskrit and the holy language of the Persians - Awestaan the university. In 1952 he gave up teaching completely.
1931 decided Ellwanger City Council to name a street after him. His home town of Schwäbisch Gmünd named the Hermann Weller Lane in Hardt district after the poet. He was also an honorary member of the Catholic Student Association K.St.V. Alamannia Tübingen in CT.
His legacy is now in the records archive Ostwürttemberg in Heubach Kaiserslautern.
The elegy Y
Weller wrote in 1937 the neo-Latin elegy Y, which describes how the poet dreams, the letters from his band with seals of Horace would alive and A were calling in demagogic speech at the eradication of alien ethnic Y. The Y flees and tries to make his existence by words such as myth, mysticism, rhythm and physics to prove - but the other letters will not be persuaded and are out to make the Y finished off. The poet asks for salvation and awake from this nightmare.
Weller, Associate Professor in Tübingen, presented the elegy Y end of 1937 at the Certamen poeticum Hoeufftianum a, a competition for neo-Latin poetry, the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen ( KNAW ) wrote out every year in Amsterdam. 1938 Weller was awarded the gold medal for this text. The fact that Weller was promoted in the same year to associate professor ( despite some concerns about his Catholicism ), shows that knowledge of Latin was not embraced by Nazi officials ( compare also Victor Klemperer, of his analysis of the Nazi language under the abbreviation LTI - Lingua tertii Imperii - hid ).
After Latinist Uwe Dubielzig is the text is a playfully disguised indictment against the increasingly apparent prominent anti-Semitism of the Nazis, the effects Weller at the University of Tubingen was observed in the immediate vicinity. It is also conceivable that the text generally directed against the minority policy of the National Socialists. Even if it can not be read as a document of anti-fascist resistance, he's a witty masked document of opposition to the inhumane policies of National Socialism, but in all its brutality just before the pogrom of the so-called " Kristallnacht " (as Charlie Chaplin in his film The Great Dictator even 1940) was also underestimated by Hermann Weller. In this respect, the elegy Y is more likely to be regarded as a remarkable testimony of inner emigration.
Works (selection)
- Master Hartmuths dream, festival, Ellwangen, 1921
- Carmina Latina, 2nd enlarged edition, Tübingen 1946