- Georg Wickram
Georg (or Jörg) Wickram (b. about 1505 in Colmar, d. before 1562 in Burkheim), German
poet andnovelist , was a native ofColmar inAlsace ; the exact date of his birth and death are unknown.He passed the latter part of his life until his death as town clerk of
Burkheim on the Rhine. Wickram was a many-sided writer. He founded aMeistersinger school in Colmar in 1549, and has left a number of Meistersingerlieder.He edited
Albrecht von Halberstadt 'sMiddle High German version ofOvid 's "Metamorphoses" (1545), and in 1555 he published "Das Rollwagenbuchlein", one of the best of the many German collections of tales and anecdotes which appeared in the 16th century. The title of the book implies its object, namely, to supply reading for the traveller in the "Rollwagen" or diligences.As a dramatist, Wickram wrote "Fastnachtsspiele" ("Das Narrengiessen", 1537; "Der treue Eckart", 1538) and two dramas on biblical subjects, "Der verlorene Sohn" (1540) and "Tobias" (1551). A moralizing poem, "Der irrereitende Pilger" (1556), is half-satiric, half-didactic.
It is, however, as a novelist that Wickram has left the deepest mark on his time, his chief romances being "Ritter Galmy aus Schottland" (1539), "Gabriotto und Reinhard" (1554), "Der Knabenspiegel" (1554), "Von guten und bösen Nachbarn" (1556) and "Der Goldfaden" (1557). These may be regarded as the earliest attempts in German literature to create that modern type of middle-class fiction which ultimately took the place of the decadent medieval romance of
chivalry .Wickram's works have been edited by:
*J Bolte and W Scheel for the "Stuttgart Literarischer Verein" (vols, 222, 223, 229, 230, 1900-1903)
*"Der Ritter Galmy" was republished byFriedrich de la Motte Fouqué in 1806
*"Der Goldfaden" byKlemens Brentano in 1809
*the "Rollwagenbuchlein" was edited byHermann Kurz in 1865, and there is also a reprint of it in "Reclam's Universalbibliothek"See A Stober, "J Wickram" (1866);Wilhelm Scherer , "Die Anfange des deutschen Prosaromans" (1897).References
*1911
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