Julius Sigismund Thümmel

* 26.11.1818 in Weissenfels; ✝ 1885 in Halle (Saale)

University Judge, Scholar

Biography

Thümmel was the son of a sexton in Weißenfels and received an education at the provincial school in Pforta. Thereafter he studied law in Leipzig and Halle. After serving on the Naumberg and Zeitz district courts he moved to Halle in 1850. There he held the office of University Judge on a provisional basis for a few months, eventually being confirmed in the position in 1864. As early as his student days was a good friend of Otto Roquette (usually considered one of the ‘Butzenscheiben’ poets, i.e. sentimentally nationalistic poets of this period), whose ‘Ihr Wandervögel in der Luft’ Thümmel arranged for male voice choir.  Roquette’s epic poem Waldmeisters Brautfahrt (1851) is dedicated to Thümmel’s mother.

Though Thümmel wrote some comedies for the Weimar Court Theatre, he chiefly made a name for himself by contributing to the German Shakespeare Society’s yearbook articles which, like his Vorträge über Shakespeare Charactere (1881), often dealt with the stock characters of Shakespearean drama.

Treatises

• ‘Ueber Shakespeare’s Narren’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 9 (1874). Pp. 87-106.
• ‘Shakespeare’s Kindergestalten’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 10 (1876). Pp. 1-21.
• ‘Ueber Shakespeare’s Clowns’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 11 (1876). Pp. 78-96.
• ‘Der Miles Gloriosus bei Shakespeare’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 13 (1878). Pp. 1-12.
• ‘Ueber die Sentenz im Drama, namentlich bei Shakespeare, Goethe und Schiller’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 14 (1879). Pp. 97-114.
• Vorträge über Shakespeare-Charaktere. 2 vols. Halle, 1881.
• ‘Ueber Shakespeare’s Geistlichkeit’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 16 (1881). Pp. 349-366.
• ‘Shakespeare’s Kreise’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 18 (1883). Pp. 127-155.
• ‘Der Liebhaber bei Shakespeare’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 19 (1884). Pp. 42-85.
• ‘Im Meermädchen’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 20 (1885). Pp. 15-36.
• ‘Shakespeare’s Helden’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 20 (1885). Pp. 85-118.
• ‘Allegorisches und Tendenziöses in Shakespeare's Dramen’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 21 (1886). Pp. 43-68.

Literature

Primary Literature

• Die Gavotte der Königin. Halle, 1876.
• Am Kamin. First performed in Weimar, 09.09.1876.
• Der Geiger vom Pont des Arts. First performed in Weimar, 06.10.1877.

Secondary Literature

• Leo, F.A.: ‘Julius Sigismund Thümmel. Nekrolog’, Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 21 (1886). Pp. 299-300.
• Roquette, Otto: Siebzig Jahre. Geschichte meines Lebens. 2 vols. Darmstadt, 1894.

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