Wilhelm Adolf B. Hertzberg

* 06.06.1813 in Halberstadt; ✝ 07.07.1879 in Bremen

Pedagogue, Translator, Writer

Biography

Hertzberg studied classical philology at the universities of Halle and Bonn.  After being awarded the doctor’s title in 1835 for his thesis on Sextus Propertius, he taught at grammar schools in Stettin and Halberstadt.  In 1842 he was appointed to the senior Bürgerschule in Elbing, and as director managed its educational affairs from 1845 onwards.  Despite his liberal sentiments, of which he made no secret, particularly in the crucial year 1848, Hertzberg was from 1849 onwards a member of the Prussian directorial congress.  In 1858 he moved as director to the commercial college in Bremen, and from 1866 onwards was director at the ‘Alte Gymnasium’ in the same town.

Alongside his successful career in schools and involvement in Bremen’s public life, Hertzberg made a name for himself as an expert on and translator of Latin and English literature. His masterpiece is considered to be his Sex. Aurelii Propertii Elegiarum libri quattuor, published between 1843 and 1845. This is a Latin commentary on the poetry of Sextus Propertius, and unites the two major fields of his early research: the poetry of the Augustan age and the elegiac genre.

In his later years Hertzberg dedicated himself more single-mindedly to English literature and published inter alia translations of Tennyson (1855), Scott (1863) and Chaucer (1866).  Particularly worthy of note is his contribution to the 1867-1871 edition of Shakespeare’s dramatische Werke, based on the Schlegel-Tieck translations, for which he retranslated eight plays.

Translations

• König Heinrich VIII. (1868)
• Liebes Leid und Lust (1869)
• Die Comödie der Irrungen (1870)
• Die beiden Veroneser (1870)
• Titus Andronicus (1870)
• Troilus und Cressida (1870)
• Ende gut, Alles gut (1870)
• Cymbelin (1871)

Other Translations

• Properz’ Gedichte. Stuttgart, 1838.
• Tennysons Gedichte. Dessau, 1853.
• Ausgewählte Gedichte der römischen Elegiker. Stuttgart, 1855.
• Vergils Gedichte. Stuttgart, 1859.
• Der Herr der Inseln. Bremen, 1863.
• Chaucers Canterbury-Geschichten. Hildburghausen, 1866.
• The libell of englishe policye 1436. Leipzig, 1878.

Treatises

• ‘Shakespeare und seine Vorläufer’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 15 (1880). Pp. 360-409.

Literature

Primary Literature

• Sex. Aurelii Propertii Elegiarum libri quattuor. 4 vols. Halle, 1843-1845.
• ‘Über den Begriff der antiken Elegie in seiner historischen Entwicklung’, Literaturhistorisches Taschenbuch, 3, 4 (1845, 1846). Pp. 205-399, 125-198.
• Shakspeare’s dramatische Werke. Ed. Hermann Ulrici. Nach der Übersetzung von A. W. Schlegel und L. Tieck. 12 vols. Berlin, 1867-1871.

Secondary Literature

• Bulle, Constantin: ‘Hertzberg, Wilhelm Adolf Boguslaw’. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 12 (1880). Pp. 249-251 [Online Version]. Url: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd116755075.html?anchor=adb.
• D., R.: ‘Wilhelm Hertzberg, Nekrolog’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 15 (1880). Pp. 353-359.
• Rohde, D.: ‘Nachruf auf Wilhelm Adolf Boguslav Hertzberg’, Anglia, 5 (1882). Pp. 283-288.
• Utz, Richard: Chaucer and the Discourse of German Philology. Turnhout, 2002.

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