Vermehren Johann Bernhard 1777 06 06 001

Johann Bernhard Vermehren (6 June 1777 in

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...

– 29 November 1803 in

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 po ...

) was an early Romantic poet and scholar. He earned a doctoral degree in philosophy from the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...

in 1799, obtaining habilitation one year later and teaching as '' Privatdozent'' until his early death from scarlet fever. His first poems appeared in Friedrich Schiller's ''

Musenalmanach A ''Musen-Almanach'' ("Muses' Almanac") was a kind of literary annual, popular in Germany from 1770 into the mid-19th century. They were modelled on the '' Almanach des Muses'' published in Paris from 1765. Development in the 1770s The first exam ...

''. The appearance in 1800 of his ten ''Letters on a Reassessment of Friedrich Schlegel's " Lucinde"'' brought him to the attention of the author in question; however, in general, criticism of the 350-page work was biting, and it was quickly superseded by Friedrich Schleiermacher's ''Vertraute Briefe'' ("Familiar letters") on the same subject. With Schlegel's assistance, Vermehren produced two issues of his own ''Musenalmanach'', the first at

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 ...

in 1802 and the second at

the next year. They contained fifteen poems by Schlegel and the work of

Sophie Mereau Sophie Friederike Mereau (née Schubart) (27 March 1770 – 31 October 1806) was a writer associated with German Romanticism. Her maiden name was Schubart, but she did most of her work under the married name of Mereau. She also later married ...

(1770–1806), Stephan August Winkelmann (1780–1806),

Klopstock Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (; 2 July 1724 – 14 March 1803) was a German poet. His best known work is the epic poem ''Der Messias'' ("The Messiah"). One of his major contributions to German literature was to open it up to exploration outsid ...

and Hölderlin. Family tradition ascribed to him the book ''Jesus, wie er lebte und lehrte'' which was published in Halle in 1799, and in the last year of his life he wrote a fairy-tale, ''"Schloss Rosenthal"'' ("Rosenthal Castle"). On 2 December 1803,

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 tr ...

mentioned the death slightingly in a letter to Schiller: "Poor Vermehren has died. Probably he would still be living had he continued writing his mediocre verse. The post office job has proved fatal." Vermehren married on 20 April 1801. His wife was Henriette Eber, twelve years older, a widow of the Jena Postmaster and daughter of the privy councillor Prof. Johann Ludwig von Eckardt (1732–1800). They had one son, Johann Bernhard Vermehren, who would become a privy councillor in the Supreme Court of Appeals for the

Ernestine duchies The Ernestine duchies (), also known as the Saxon duchies (, although the Albertine appanage duchies of Weissenfels, Merseburg and Zeitz were also "Saxon duchies" and adjacent to several Ernestine ones), were a group of small states whose num ...

. After Vermehren's death, Henriette (died 1842) married the mathematician Johann Heinrich Voigt (1751–1823).

Bibliography

* Peter Guttkuhn: ''Vergebens um Goethes und Schillers Gunst gebuhlt. Zum 200. Todestag des Romantikers Johann Bernhard Vermehren.'' In: '' Lübeckische Blätter'', Lübeck 2003, pages 325–329. * Oskar F. Walzel
''Vermehren: Johann Bernhard.''
In: '' Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB). Band 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, pages 623–626. {{DEFAULTSORT:Vermehren, Johann Bernhard 1777 births 1803 deaths German poets German male poets