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August Immanuel Bekker (21 May 17857 June 1871) was a German
philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...
and
critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or gover ...
.


Biography

Born in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, Bekker completed his classical education at the
University of Halle Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university in ...
under
Friedrich August Wolf Friedrich August Wolf (; 15 February 1759 – 8 August 1824) was a German classicist and is considered the founder of modern philology. Biography He was born in Hainrode, near Nordhausen. His father was the village schoolmaster and organi ...
, who considered him as his most promising pupil. In 1810 he was appointed professor of
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
in the
University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...
. For several years, between 1810 and 1821, he travelled in France,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, England and parts of Germany, examining classical manuscripts and gathering materials for his great editorial labours. Some of the fruits of his researches were published in the ''
Anecdota Graeca Anecdota may refer to: *The '' Anecdota'' or ''Secret History'' of Procopius *Hence an anecdote * ''Anecdota'' (album), 2004 release by Lucid Druid ''Anecdota'' also appears in the title of many books, especially history or memoir A memoir (; ...
'' (3 vols, 1814–1821), but the major results are to be found in the enormous array of classical authors edited by him. Anything like a complete list of his works would occupy too much space, but it may be said that his industry extended to nearly the whole of
Greek literature Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving writte ...
with the exception of the tragedians and lyric poets. His best known editions are those of
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
(1816–1823), ''Oratores Attici'' (1823–1824),
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
(1831–1836),
Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his ...
(1829), and twenty-five volumes of the '' Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae''.Bekker oversaw the series from 1831, following
Barthold G. Niebuhr Barthold Georg Niebuhr (27 August 1776 – 2 January 1831) was a Danish–German statesman, banker, and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. By 1810 Niebuhr wa ...
's death. However, he never enjoyed the job. Dieter R. Reinsch noted that he wrote prefaces only to those authors he thought "worth", and in any case never exceeding a single page which he used to utter all his displeasure. The ''CFHB'' volumes edited by Bekker became infamous for the misprints and errors and August Heisenberg, according to Franz Dölger, once said that he must have revised those texts 'lying on the sofa with the cigar in his mouth'. See
The only Latin authors edited by him were
Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...
(1829–1830) and
Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
(1831). Bekker confined himself entirely to manuscript investigations and textual criticism; he contributed little to the extension of other types of scholarship.
Bekker numbers Bekker numbering or Bekker pagination is the standard form of citation to the works of Aristotle. It is based on the page numbers used in the Prussian Academy of Sciences edition of the complete works of Aristotle and takes its name from the ed ...
have become the standard way of referring to the works of Aristotle and the Corpus Aristotelicum. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1861. He died in Berlin aged 86.


Works

* Ducas, Michael, ''Ducae : Michaelis Ducae Nepotis Historia Byzantina'', ed. by Bekker, August Immanuel (Bonn: Weber, 1834). * Khoniátis, Nikítas, ''Narrattive of Events after the Capture of the City
y the Franks Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...
', ed. by Bekker, August Immanuel (Bonn: Weber, 1835). * Phrantzis, G., ''Chronicon'', ed. by Bekker, August Immanuel (Bonn: Weber, 1838). * Khalkokondhýlis, ''‘Laónikos' (i.e. Nikólaos), De Origine et Rebus Gestis Turcarum'', ed. by Bekker, August Immanuel (Bonn: Weber, 1843). * Attaleiátis, Michael, ''Historia'', ed. by Bekker, August Immanuel (Bonn: Weber, 1853).


Notes


References

* Endnotes: ** H. Sauppe, Zur Erinnerung an Meineke und Bekker (1872); ** M. Haupt, “Gedächtnisrede auf Meineke und Bekker”, in his Opuscula, iii.; ** Ernst Immanuel Bekker, “Zur Erinnerung an meinen Vater”, in the ''Preußische Jahrbücher'', vol. 29 (Berlin 1872).


Further reading

* ''Apollonii Dyscoli de Pronomine liber'', ed. I. Bekker, Berolini 1813. * ''Apollonii Alexandrini de Constructione Orationis libri quatuor ex rec. I.'' Bekkeri, Berolini 1817. * ''Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica'', Berlin, 1831–1870. (5 volumes).


External links

*
Guide to the Immanuel Bekker Papers 1806–1853
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bekker, August Immanuel 1785 births 1871 deaths Writers from Berlin German philologists German scholars of ancient Greek philosophy Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) People from the Margraviate of Brandenburg University of Halle alumni Humboldt University of Berlin faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences German male non-fiction writers German classical philologists German Byzantinists Scholars of Byzantine literature Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities