Rudolf Gottfried Otto Harnack (23 November 1857, in

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...

– 22 March 1914, near

Besigheim Besigheim () is a municipality in the district of Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is situated 13 km north of Ludwigsburg at the confluence of the Neckar and Enz rivers. The town has many old buildings and a t ...

) was a German

literary historian The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...

, best known for his writings on

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

. He studied history 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 universities of

Dorpat Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern Europe, Northern Europe, European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres ...

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

, receiving his doctorate at the latter institution in 1880. After graduation, he worked as a schoolteacher in

(from 1882), a school director in Wenden (from 1887), an employee of the ''Preussische Jahrbücher'' 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 constitue ...

(from 1889) and as a journalist in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

(from 1891). In 1896 he was named a professor of history and literature at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, then in 1905 relocated to the Technical College of Stuttgart as a professor of literature and aesthetics. On 22 March 1914 he committed suicide.Görres - Hittorp / edited by Rudolf Vierhaus
Deutsche Biographische EnzyklopaedieHarnack, Gottfried Rudolf Otto
Hessian Biography He was the son of theologian

Theodosius Harnack Theodosius Andreas Harnack (russian: Феодосий Карлович Гарнак, translit=Feodosij Karlovič Garnak; , St. Petersburg – , Dorpat (now )) was a Baltic German theologian. A professor of Divinity, he started his career as a ...

, the brother of theologian

Adolf von Harnack Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack (born Harnack; 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited ...

, mathematician

Carl Gustav Axel Harnack Carl Gustav Axel Harnack (, Dorpat (now ) – 3 April 1888, Dresden) was a Baltic German mathematician who contributed to potential theory. Harnack's inequality applied to harmonic functions. He also worked on the real algebraic geometry of pla ...

and pharmacologist Erich Harnack. He was the father of screenwriter

Falk Harnack Falk Harnack (2 March 1913 – 3 September 1991) was a German director and screenwriter. During Germany's Nazi era, he was also active with the German Resistance and toward the end of World War II, the partisans in Greece. Harnack was from a famil ...

and jurist

Arvid Harnack Arvid Harnack (; 24 May 1901 in Darmstadt – 22 December 1942 in Berlin) was a German jurist, Marxist economist, Communist, and German resistance fighter in Nazi Germany. Harnack came from an intellectual family and was originally a humanist. He ...

Selected works

* ''Goethe in der epoche seiner vollendung 1805-1832'' (1887) – Goethe in the epoch of his perfection, 1805–1832. * ''Deutsches kunstleben in Rom im zeitalter der klassik'' (1892) – German artistic life in Rome during the classical age. * ''Über Goethe's Verhältnis zu Shakespeare'' (1896) – Goethe's relationship with

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. * ''Schiller'' (1898) – On

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

. * ''Essais und studien zur literaturgeschichte'' (1899) – Essays and studies of literary history. * ''Goethe und das Theater'' (1900) – Goethe and the theater. * ''Der gang der handlung in Goethes Faust'' (1902) – The course of action in Goethe's ''Faust''. * ''Der Deutsche Klassizismus im Zeitalter Goethes'' (1906) – German classicism in the era of Goethe. * ''Aufsätze und vorträge'' (1911) – Articles and lectures. * Wilhelm von Humboldt (1912) – On

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after ...

. Also, he made contributions as an editor to

Karl Heinemann Karl Heinemann (9 March 1857, in Deutsch-Eylau – 4 July 1927, in Leipzig) was a German literary historian and philologist. He studied classical and German philology at the University of Leipzig. From 1882 he taught classes as a gymnasium t ...

's multi-volume ''Goethes Werke''.Harnack, Rudolf Gottfried Otto
IdRef (bibliography)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harnack, Otto 1857 births 1914 deaths People from Erlangen University of Göttingen alumni University of Tartu alumni Academic staff of the University of Stuttgart Academic staff of Technische Universität Darmstadt German literary historians 1914 suicides Suicides in Germany