Friedrich Ranke (21 September 1882 - 11 October 1950) was a German
medievalist philologist and
folklorist. His
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
textbook ''Altnordisches Elementarbuch'' remains a standard, and all literature concerning
Gottfried von Strassburgs ''Tristan und Isold'' uses Ranke's line numbering for references to the text.
Biography
Born in
Lübeck as one of three sons of the theologian Leopold Friedrich Ranke and his wife Julie (von Bever) (1850–1924) he was a brother of the
Egyptologists Hermann und Otto Ranke (1880–1917).
Graduating from the Katharineum at Lübeck, he studied German, English and Nordic philology at the universities of
Göttingen (1902/03),
Munich (1903/05) and
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
(1905/07). In Munich he studied with the pioneering folklorist
Friedrich von der Leyen. In Berlin he made his publishing debut with ''Sprache und Stil im Wälschen Gast des Thomasin von Circlaria'' ("Language and style in 'The
Romansh Guest' by
Thomasin von Zirclaere"). His term at the
University of Strassburg produced his work of German
folktales, ''Der Erloser in der Wiege; ein Beitrag zur Deutschen Volkssagenforschung'' ("The Redeemer in the cradle: a contribution towards German folktale research", 1911).
From 1912 Ranke was occupied as a tutor in Göttingen, After returning from his service at the front in
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
he was appointed assistant professor there in German philology, and then in 1921 full professor in German philology at the
University of Königsberg; in 1930 he occupied the same position at the
University of Breslau, whence, silenced by the
Nazis in 1937, he removed to the
University of Basel, Switzerland, as professor of German philology, where he remained until his death.
Selected publications
*''Die deutschen Volkssagen''. Munich 1910 (Deutsches Sagenbuch; 4).
*''Der Erlöser in der Wiege: ein Beitrag zur deutschen Volkssagenforschung''. Munich 1911.
*''Tristan und Isold''. Munich 1925 (Bücher des Mittelalters; 3), Berlin 1930, etc.; Ranke's corrected second edition (1949) is still the standard modern critical edition of
Gottfried von Strassburg's text.
*''Die Allegorie der Minnegrotte in Gottfrieds Tristan''. Berlin 1925 (Königsberger Gelehrte Gesellschaft/Geisteswissenschaftliche Klasse: Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, Geisteswissenschaftliche Klasse; 2,2).
Volkssagenforschung. Vorträge u. Aufsätze. Breslau 1935 (Deutschkundliche Arbeiten/A; 4).
*''Altnordisches Elementarbuch. Schrifttum, Sprache, Texte mit Übersetzung und Wörterbuch''. Berlin 1937
*''Gott, Welt und Humanität in der deutschen Dichtung des Mittelalters''. Basel 1952.
His articles were assembled and reprinted as ''Kleinere Schriften''. Bern/Munich 1971 (in series ''Bibliotheca Germanica'' 12).
*''Die Überlieferung von Gottfrieds Tristan''. Darmstadt 1974.
There are detailed accounts of Ranke, by Hartmut Freytag in Alken Bruns, ed.''Lübecker Lebensläufe'', (Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz Verlag) 1993, , S. 317-320; and by Rolf-Wilhelm Brednich in ''Enzyklopädie des Märchens'' vol 11 (2004), pp203–207.
See also
*
Eugen Mogk
*
Hugo Gering
*
Rudolf Much
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ranke, Friedrich
1882 births
1950 deaths
Germanic studies scholars
German Germanists
Writers from Lübeck
20th-century German philologists