Hermann Weller

Hermann Weller (4 February 1878 - 9 December 1956) was an German Indiologist and neo-Latin poet born in Schwäbisch Gmünd, died in Tübingen. He is considered the Horace of the twentieth century.

After his studies in Tübingen, the classical philologist taught as a school teacher in the Ellwangen Gymnasium between 1913 and 1931. He also held a position at the Ehingen Gymnasium. In 1930 he qualified as a university teacher in Tübingen.

Weller was already so famous by 1931 that in that year the Ellwangen town council decided to name a street after him.

The "Y Elegy"

Weller wrote the neo-Latin "Y Elegy", which describes how in a poet's dream the letters of the alphabet from a volume of Horace's poetry become alive, and how "A" calls in a demagogic speech for the extermination of the foreign letter Y. "Y" escapes and tries through words (myths, mysticism, rhythm, and physics) to prove its right to exist, but the other letters do not allow themselves to be convinced, and are in the process of excluding "Y". The poet asks for release and awakes from this nightmare.

Weller, a private senior lecturer, at Tübingen University, submitted the Y Elegy at the end of 1937, to the " Certamen Hoeufftianum", a competition of neo-Latin poetry of the "Royal Dutch Academy of Wetenschappen" (KNAW) held annually in Amsterdam, which he won thirteen times in the course of his life. In 1938 Weller was awarded the Gold Medal for this text. The fact that Weller could be promoted to the position of Special Professor in the same year (despite certain doubts on account of his Catholicism) shows that knowledge of Latin among Nazi officials was not wide.

The Latin scholar, Uwe Dubielzig, recognised in 2001 that the text was a playfully disguised accusation against the ever more apparent anti-Semitism of the Nazis, the effects of which Weller could observe in his immediate surroundings of Tübingen University. Additionally, if the text cannot be read as a document of anti-fascist resistance, it is still a spirited but camouflaged document opposing the Nazi racist politics, the full brutality of which, before the pogrom of the so-called Reichskristallnacht, Weller would have underestimated, (as did Charlie Chaplin even in 1940 in his film The Great Dictator). In that sense the Y Elegy can be assessed as a remarkable testimony for 'internal emigration'.

Works

* [http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost20/Weller/wel_cyps.html lat. Text von Y im Rahmen der Carmina]

Sources

* [http://www.phil-hum-ren.uni-muenchen.de/GermLat/Acta/Dubielzig.htm Uwe Dubielzig Die neue Königin der Elegien Hermann Wellers Gedicht ’Y’]