Gervinus
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GEORG GOTTFRIED (ger-ve'nös), a German historian; born in Darmstadt, Hesse, May 20, 1805. He studied at Heidelberg; was for some time a teacher. He published his "History of the Poetic National Literature of the Germans," 1835-1842 . In 1835 he was appointed extraordinary professor at Heidelberg, a 1 the following year ordinary Professor of History and Literature at Göttingen; but in 1837, being one of the seven professors who protested against King Ernst August's breach of the constitution , he was banished from Hanover. After another visit to Italy he returned to Heidelberg, where in 1844 he was appointed an honactive liberal in politics, edited the "Deutsche Zeitung" and was returned to the federal diet by the Hanse towns . In 1848, he gave up politics and resumed his old studies. In 1849 he published the first part of the great work on Shakespeare, in 1853 his "History of German Poetry," and in 1855 the first volume of his "History of the Nineteenth Century," Among his last writings was a critical essay on Händel and Shakespeare. He died in Heidelberg, Baden, March 18, 1871. a GESTA ROMANORUM (jes'tä rōma-nō-rum). "Deeds of the Romans," collection of short tales , title of legends, etc., in Latin, very popular in the Middle Ages. The book was probably written about the close of the 13th century by a certain monk Elinandus, an Englishman or a German. The separate tales making up the Gesta are of very various contents , and belong to different times and countries . Moral reflections and allegorical interpretations added to them, it is said, by a Petrus Bercorius or Pierre Bercaire of Poitou, a Benedictine prior. After the Reformation the book fell into oblivion . were
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Every biographical fact Collier's gives in 1921 still stands: the 1835-42 literary history, the expulsion from Hanover in 1837 as one of the "Göttingen Seven" (a group that also included Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and whose protest is still commemorated at Göttingen), and the death at Heidelberg in 1871. What has fallen away is his authority. The Shakespeare book Collier's calls "great" — translated into English as Shakespeare Commentaries and treated in the 1860s and 70s as the standard critical guide — is now read chiefly as a period document, and his literary history is studied mainly as an example of how nineteenth-century scholars enlisted German poetry in the cause of national unification. Collier's also passes over the 1853 prosecution for treason over the introduction to his History of the Nineteenth Century, an episode modern accounts usually put near the centre of his career.
Written for this edition, 2026.