Adolf Böttger

* 21.5.1816 in Leipzig; ✝ 16.11.1870 in Leipzig

Poet, Translator

Biography

Adolf Böttger received his school and academic formation in the Leipzig Thomasschule, where he particularly concentrated on the English language. Initially influenced by Byron, this romantic writer – scarcely recognized in our own day – first came to public attention with his volume of poems, Gedichte (1846). On account of his poems ‘Hyacinth und Liliade’ (1849) and ‘Die Pilgerfahrt der Blumengeister’ (1851) Böttger is regarded, according to Gottschall, as the founder of the so-called ‘Blumenlyrik’. Among his better known works belong the play Agnes Bernauer (1850) and, from the year he died, the fairy-tale poem ‘Das Galgenmännchen’.

Böttger translated works by Byron, Godsmith, Longfellow, Marlowe, Milton, Pope, ‘Ossian’ and Racine, not to mention parts of Shakespeare’s Henry VI (included in the series Shakespeares sämmtliche Werke, published at Leipzig from 1838). Later he published two further Shakespeare translations: Ein Sommernachtstraum and Viel Lärmen um Nichts.

Translations

• König Heinrich VI. (1836-37)
• Ein Sommernachtstraum (1848)
• Viel Lärmen um Nichts (1850)

Other Translations

• Lord Byron's sämmtliche Werke. Leipzig, 1841.
• Milton's Poetische Werke. Leipzig, 1846.
• Ossian. Leipzig, 1852.
• Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faust. Leipzig, 1857.

Literature

Primary Literature

• Shakespeares sämmtliche Werke. Ed. Adolf Böttger u.a. Leipzig, 1838.
• Agnes Bernauer. Trauerspiel in 5 Aufzügen. Leipzig, 1846.
• Cameen. Poetische Erzählungen. Leipzig, 1856.
• Goethe's Jugendliebe. Gedicht. Leipzig, 1862.
• Gesammelte Werke. 6 vols. Leipzig, 1864-1866.

Secondary Literature

• Gottschall, Rudolf: „Adolf Böttger. Ein literarisches Portrait“, Unsere Zeit, 1 (1871). Pp. 118-128.
• Merzdorf, Johann Friedrich: „Böttger, Adolf“. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 3 (1876). Pp. 201-202 [Online Version]. Url: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd11622620X.html?anchor=adb.

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