Johann Karl Wezel (October 31, 1747, in

Sondershausen Sondershausen is a town in Thuringia, central Germany, capital of the Kyffhäuserkreis district, situated about 50 km north of Erfurt. On 1 December 2007, the former municipality Schernberg was incorporated by Sondershausen. Until 1918 it ...

, Germany – January 28, 1819, in Sondershausen), also Johann Carl Wezel, was a German poet, novelist, and philosopher of the Enlightenment.

Life

Born the son of domestic servants, Wezel studied

Theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

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. Some ...

, and

Philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

. Early philosophical influences include

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...

and

Julien Offray de La Mettrie Julien Offray de La Mettrie (; November 23, 1709 – November 11, 1751) was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialists of the Enlightenment. He is best known for his 1747 work '' L'homme machine'' ('' ...

. After positions as a tutor at the courts of

Bautzen Bautzen () or Budyšin () is a hill-top town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and the administrative centre of the district of Bautzen. It is located on the Spree river. In 2018 the town's population was 39,087. Until 1868, its German name was ''Budis ...

and

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 constitue ...

, Wezel lived as a freelance writer. A short stay in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

did not result in him getting employed by the local, national theater. He thus moved back to

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

and, in 1793, to Sondershausen, which he did not leave again until he died in 1819.Meid, Volker: Reclams Lexikon der deutschsprachigen Autoren, Stuttgart 2001Klingenberg, Anneliese: Afterword in Wezel, Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts, Berlin and Weimar 1990 Although his works were extremely successful when published, Wezel was almost forgotten when he died. His rediscovery in the second half of the 20th century is mainly due to German author

Arno Schmidt Arno Schmidt (; 18 January 1914 – 3 June 1979) was a German author and translator. He is little known outside of German-speaking areas, in part because his works present a formidable challenge to translators. Although he is not one of the p ...

who published a radio essay about him in 1959.Prütting, Lenz: Bibliographical note to Wezel, Belphegor, Frankfurt am Main 1984

Works

* ''Filibert und Theodosia'' (1772) * ''Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts, des Weisen, sonst der Stammler genannt: aus Familiennachrichten gesammelt'' (1773–1776) * ''Der Graf von Wickham'' (1774) * ''Epistel an die deutschen Dichter'' (1775) * ''Belphegor oder die wahrscheinlichste Geschichte unter der Sonne'' (1776) * ''Herrmann und Ulrike'' (1780) * ''Appellation der Vokalen an das Publikum'' (1778) * ''Die wilde Betty'' (1779) * ''Zelmor und Ermide'' (1779) * ''Tagebuch eines neuen Ehmanns'' (1779) * ''Robinson Krusoe. Neu bearbeitet'' (1779) * ''Ueber Sprache, Wißenschaften und Geschmack der Teutschen'' (1781) * ''Meine Auferstehung'' (1782) * ''Wilhelmine Arend oder die Gefahren der Empfindsamkeit'' (1782) * ''Kakerlak, oder Geschichte eines Rosenkreuzers aus dem vorigen Jahrhunderte'' (1784) * ''Versuch über die Kenntniß des Menschen'' (1784–1785)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wezel, Johann Karl 1747 births 1819 deaths People from Sondershausen German male writershuort escrouesr