Gottlieb Christoph Harless (originally Harles) (21 June 1738 – 2 November 1815) was a German

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and

bibliographer Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...

Biography

He was born at Culmbach in Bavaria. He studied at the universities of Halle,

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 in ...

and

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...

. In 1765 he was appointed professor of oriental languages and eloquence at the Gymnasium Casimirianum in

Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it ...

, in 1770 professor of

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

and eloquence at Erlangen, and in 1776 librarian of the university. He held his professorship for forty-five years till his death. Harless was an extremely prolific writer. His numerous editions of classical authors lack originality and critical judgment, but were valuable at the time because they summarised earlier scholarship for the benefit of the student. He is chiefly remembered for his work in connection with the great ''Bibliotheca Graeca'' of J. A. Fabricius, of which he published a new and revised edition (12 vols., 1790–1809, not quite completed) — a task for which he was uniquely qualified. He also wrote much on the history and bibliography of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Latin literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...

. His biography was written by his son, Johann Christian Friedrich Harless (1818).

Notes

References

* 1738 births 1815 deaths German classical scholars German bibliographers People from Erlangen University of Halle alumni University of Erlangen-Nuremberg alumni University of Erlangen-Nuremberg faculty University of Jena alumni German male non-fiction writers {{Germany-academic-bio-stub