Simrock, KARL JOSEPH

Simrock, KARL JOSEPH, a German poet and scholar, whose name is indissolubly associated with the revival of interest in old German literature, was born at Bonn, 28th August 1802. He studied at the university of his native city and at Berlin, and in 1826 entered the Prussian state service. His first work was a translation into modern German of the Nibelungenlied (1827; 50th ed. 1890). Soon after the publication of his translation of Hartmann von der Aue's Armer Heinrich (1830) he was compelled to leave the Prussian service on account of a revolutionary poem which he had written. Afterwards he devoted himself exclusively to literature, and more particularly to the early literature of his own country, which he has modernised in excellent style—e.g. the poems of Walter von der Vogelweide (1833), Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival (1842), Reineke Fuchs (1845), Die Edda (1851), Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan und Isolde (1855), the Hiland (1856), Beowulf (1859), Der Wartburgkrieg (1858), Brant's Narrenschiff (1872), &c. Besides these editorial labours he translated Shakespeare's poems and some of his plays, and published Quellen des Shakespeare in Novellen, Märchen, und Sagen (3 vols. 1831), in conjunction with Echtermeyer and Henschel; Novellenschatz der Italiener (1832); Rheinsagen aus dem Munde des Volkes und Deutscher Dichter (1836); a collection of German Volksbücher (13 vols. 1844–67), comprising national proverbs, songs, and riddles, besides a vast quantity of stories; Das Heldenbuch, partly translations and partly original poems (6 vols. 1843–49) illustrative of the heroic traditions of the Teutonic race; his own Gedichte (1844); and a considerable number of handbooks. In 1850 he was appointed professor of Old German Language and Literature at Bonn, a post which he held till his death, on 18th July 1876. See a monograph on him by Hocker (Leip. 1877).