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

classical scholar Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

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 ''bibliograph ...

Biography

He was born at Culmbach in

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

. He studied at the universities of Halle,

Erlangen Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...

and

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany 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 in ...

. In 1765 he was appointed professor of

oriental languages Asia is home to hundreds of languages comprising several families and some unrelated isolates. The most spoken language families on the continent include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Japonic, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turkic, ...

and eloquence at the Gymnasium Casimirianum in

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

, in 1770 professor of

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

and eloquence at Erlangen, and in 1776 librarian of the university. He held his professorship for forty-five years until 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: 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 of all kno ...

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 literatur ...

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

External links

List of links to scans of ''Bibliotheca Graeca'' volumes
(including volumes from Harless' edition), in the "Links Galore" spreadsheet

Notes

References

* 1738 births 1815 deaths German classical scholars German bibliographers People from Erlangen University of Halle alumni University of Erlangen–Nuremberg alumni Academic staff of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg University of Jena alumni German male non-fiction writers 18th-century German scholars {{Germany-academic-bio-stub