Johann Jakob Engel

Johann Jacob Engel ( born September 11, 1741 Parchim, † June 28, 1802 ) was a German writer and philosopher of the Enlightenment.

Youth and studies

Angel was born as one of six children of Pastor Karl Wilhelm Christian Engel (1704-1765) and his wife Marie Elisabeth, née Brasch ( 1724-1803 ). He was the eldest son. At age nine, Johann Jacob came to his uncle Johann Ludwig Engel (1699-1758), who in Rostock taught as an academic philosophy. Through him, the young Johann Jacob gained such a level of education that he could start desired by the father studying theology at April 26, 1757, not yet sixteen years old, at the University of Rostock. In the same year he returned to illness back to Parchim. There Engel wrote his first literary text, namely, a " monument of love and reverence " for the surprisingly late Rostock foster father. It was not until 1759 took the young angel again his studies in Rostock on what he from May 1762 little determined there and then continued as a result of the closure of the university in 1760 made ​​Biitzow. 1763 angel was Dr. phil. doctorate. After the death of his father in 1765 he went to Leipzig, where he was initially quite concerned with the exploration of this new urban world. He settled until 1766 enrollment at the University and first studied theology, but then turned philological, philosophical and mathematical studies.

First literary successes and teaching

However, his professional future not revealed itself from these studies, but went back to the influence of the poet and writer Christian Felix Weisse. Angels now began to work even literary. These were first historical essays, reviews and translations, then he found as a playwright own profile.

In the winter of 1767/68 he was involved in a performance of the play " Minna von Barn-helm " in the role of Tellheim. As soon after the ousted from Dresden Heinrich Gottfried Koch opened his Schauspielhaus in Leipzig, angels came completely under the spell of acting. His first attempt was followed by the 1771 printed in Leipzig comedy " The grateful son." This had extraordinary success, as well as " The noble youth " (1775 ), a comedy for children throughout Germany. The latter piece also brought Abel Seyler with his theater troupe in Thuringia and Saxony to the performance. After the publication of his essay collection " The Philosopher of the World" in 1776 he became professor of philosophy and fine arts at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin. The Office engaged him to teach five hours moral philosophy, logic and history weekly. Here, the popular reconnaissance gained a very good reputation, which is why wealthy citizens zoom attracted him to private lectures for their offspring. For 1785/86 the Humboldt's what Wilhelm von Humboldt later told his bride:

"My first better education I received by angels. He is a very fine and light full head, perhaps not very deep, but as soon conceptualizing and representing, as I have never found it again, can only be understood in intellectual things. In the I heard philosophy with only a few others, and then taught again my brother (Alexander) in his presence. He won me extremely fond of, and I had an attachment to him, a respect - as in the perceived sense of the word -. A love that went into the highest enthusiasm "

Berlin Enlightenment, literary theory, literary creation

A little later (1787 ) became angels appointed on the basis of work on physics as a member of the Academy of Arts and a teacher of Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (later Frederick William III. ) And took in the former Berlin literary circles soon an important and excellent position. In the group of those writers who withdrawals their spiritual beliefs and the enlightening moralistic rationalism, in the form but the pattern Lessing nachstrebten, thereby befleißigten especially the maintenance of a clear prose, Engel was one of the most talented and most efficient. His dramatic beginnings, the comedies: " The grateful son ," "The Diamond ", inter alia, the play " The noble youth, " and his " ideas for a facial expression " (Berlin 1785-86; newly edited by B. Dawison. Berlin 1869), got him after the accession of Friedrich Wilhelm II (1786 ) the management of the newly built Berlin National theater, which he led until 1794. In wide circles of the public now had him his " eulogy of Frederick II " (Leipzig, 1781 ) and " The Philosopher of the World" (Leipzig 1775-77 ), the last great moral weekly after the once popular pattern of Addison's " Spectator" made known. In it he represented, compared to the beginning of the Sturm und Drang period, with determination and ingenuity the position of the moralizing poetry and sober realism. In popular - philosophical ( Women's philosophy) and poetic works, he searched his mind on his contemporaries to work and could be a considerable time even the genius citizen, Goethe and Schiller to argue against.

Through his writings " About action, talk and narrative " (1774 ) and the " rudiments [n ] a theory of types of poetry " (with foreword by Friedrich Nicolai, Leipzig 1783) Angel belongs as an important precursor of better-known literary theorist of the pioneers of modern narrative theory.

His "little magazines" (Berlin, 1785), his " Mirror of Princes " (Berlin 1798), be above all by fine observation of the small, everyday things excellent, poetry loose in the rest of nature painting " Mr. Lorenz Stark " (first in Schiller's " Hours " in 1795 and 1796, Berlin 1801) found, especially in northern Germany, earned and exaggerated admiration.

Vicissitudes of life

With the takeover of the management of the National Theatre Engel took over with an annual income of 800 dollars a load, which is actually beyond him. For he was responsible for the selection of the pieces and actor, had trouble with the stage hands and audience, while even brawls were not uncommon. One day he was heard: " The angel has given laws, but no hell they want to keep! "

His 1790 filed application for dismissal was not approved of King Friedrich Wilhelm II, only to chase him four years later without pension from it. This was preceded by a strange argument about the desired by the king performance of Mozart's "Magic Flute", the angels refused under manifold, mainly in economic terms. When the work then in the whole of Germany was successful, he could no longer refuse themselves. But angels put the Berlin premiere on a day he knew that the king would be absent, which he recognized as impropriety and punished.

Since angels now only still had income from his literary activities available, it could be life in Berlin no longer afford expensive and he left the Prussian metropolis. The lifelong bachelor moved to Schwerin and stayed with his younger brother, Charles Christian, who was indeed a doctor, but also had literary ambitions. In this situation, angels do not even disdained the participation in the literary journal " The Hours ". The offer came from the publisher Friedrich Schiller, for the angel was once a " sworn enemy " (1787 ) and to a " paltry (r ) dog had been" (1788 ).

Now 1794 Schiller wrote to the publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta, " four noble men of our Societät already acceded, Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Christian Garve and angels ." Two years later appeared in Schiller's " Horen " in sequels Engels as " character painting" scale family novel " Mr. Lorenz Stark ". In Schwerin Engels essay collection " The Mirror of Princes " to those "who are determined to govern, to say some do them useful truth " had emerged. These were the thoughts that he once recited the Crown Prince in his private lectures.

1798 angel was succeeded by his pupil Friedrich Wilhelm III. recalled after its takeover by Berlin and died 1802 in Parchim, where he had taken a trip to visit the request of his mother. A collection of his " all fonts " began even to Angel 's lifetime (Berlin 1801-1806, 12 volumes, new ed, Berlin, 1851, 14 volumes. ).