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RITSCHL, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1806-1876)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 369 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RITSCHL, See also:FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1806-1876) , See also:German See also:scholar, was See also:born in 18o6 in Thuringia. His See also:family, in which culture and poverty were hereditary, were Protestants who had migrated several generations earlier from Bohemia. Ritschl was fortunate in his school training, at a See also:time when the See also:great reform in the higher See also:schools of See also:Prussia had not yet been thoroughly carried out. His See also:chief teacher, Spitzner, a See also:pupil of Gottfried See also:Hermann, divined the boy's See also:genius and allowed it See also:free growth, applying only so much either of stimulus or of See also:restraint as was absolutely needful. After a wasted See also:year at the university of See also:Leipzig, where Hermann stood at the See also:zenith of his fame, Ritschl passed in 1826 to See also:Halle. Here he came under the powerful See also:influence of Reisig, a See also:young " Hermannianer " with exceptional See also:talent, a fascinating See also:personality and a rare See also:gift for instilling into his pupils his own ardour for classical study. The great controversy between the " Realists " and the " Verbalists " was then at its height, and Ritschl naturally sided with Hermann against Boeckh. The See also:early See also:death of Reisig in 1828 did not sever Ritschl from Halle, where he began his professorial career with a great reputation and brilliant success, but soon hearers See also:fell away, and the pinch of poverty compelled his removal to See also:Breslau, where he reached the See also:rank of " See also:ordinary " See also:professor in 1834, and held other offices. The great event of Ritschl's See also:life was a sojourn of nearly a year in See also:Italy (1836-37), spent in See also:libraries and museums, and more particularly in the laborious examination of the Ambrosian See also:palimpsest of See also:Plautus at See also:Milan. The See also:remainder of his life was largely occupied in working out the material then gathered and the ideas then conceived. See also:Bonn, whither he removed on his See also:marriage in 1839, and where he remained for twenty-six years, was the great See also:scene of his activity both as scholar and as teacher. The philological See also:seminary which he controlled, although nominally only See also:joint-director with See also:Welcker, became a veritable officina litterarum, a See also:kind of Isocratean school of classical study; in it were trained many of the fore-most scholars of the last See also:forty years.

The names of Georg See also:

Curtius, Ihne, See also:Schleicher, See also:Bernays, See also:Ribbeck, Lorenz, Vahlen, See also:Hubner, Biicheler, Helbig, Benndorf, Riese, Windisch, who were his pupils either at Bonn or at Leipzig, attest his fame and See also:power as a teacher. In 1854 See also:Otto See also:Jahn took the See also:place of the See also:venerable Welcker at Bonn, and after a time succeeded in dividing with Ritschl the See also:empire over the philological school there. The two had been See also:friends, but after See also:gradual estrangement a violent dispute arose between them in 1865, which for many months divided into two hostile forces the See also:universities and the See also:press of See also:Germany. Both sides were steeped in See also:fault, but Ritschl undoubtedly received harsh treatment from the Prussian See also:government, and pressed his resignation. He accepted a See also:call to Leipzig, where he died in See also:harness in 1876. Ritschl's See also:character was strongly marked. The spirited See also:element in him was powerful, and to some at times he seemed overbearing, but his nature was See also:noble at the core; and, though intolerant of inefficiency and stupidity, he never asserted his See also:personal claims in any mean or See also:petty way. He was warmly attached to family and friends, and yearned continually after sympathy, yet he established real intimacy with only a few. He had a great See also:faculty for organization, as is shown by his See also:administration of the university library at Bonn, and by the sight years of labour which carried to success a See also:work of See also:infinite complexity, the famous Priscae Latinitatis Monumenta Epigraphica (Bonn, 186z). This See also:volume presents in admirable acsimile, with prefatory notices and indexes, the Latin See also:inscriptions from the earliest times to the end of the See also:republic. It forms an See also:introductory volume to the See also:Berlin Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, the excellence of which is largely due to the See also:precept and example of Ritschl, though he had no See also:hand in the later volumes. The results of Ritschl's life are mainly gathered up in a See also:long See also:series of monographs, for the most See also:part of the highest finish, and See also:rich in ideas which have leavened the scholarship of the time.

As a scholar, Ritschl was of the lineage of See also:

Bentley, to whom he looked up, Iike Hermann, with fervent admiration. His best efforts were spent in studying the See also:languages and literatures of See also:Greece and See also:Rome, rather than the life of the Greeks and See also:Romans. He was sometimes, but most unjustly, charged with taking a narrow view of " Philologie." That he keenly appreciated the importance of See also:ancient institutions and ancient See also:art both his published papers and the records of his lectures amply testify. He devoted himself for the most part to the study of ancient See also:poetry, and in particular of the early Latin See also:drama. This formed the centre from which his investigations radiated. Starting from this he ranged over the whole remains of pre-Ciceronian Latin, and not only analysed but augmented the See also:sources from which our knowledge of it must come. Before Ritschl the acquaintance of scholars with early Latin was so dim and restricted that it would perhaps be hardly an exaggeration to call him its real discoverer. To the See also:world in See also:general Ritschl was best known as a student of Plautus. He cleared away the accretions of ages, and by efforts of that real genius which goes hand in hand with labour, brought to See also:light many of the true features of the See also:original. It is infinitely to be regretted that Ritschl's results were never combined to See also:form that monumental edition of Plautus of which he dreamed in his earlier life. Ritschl's examination of the Plautine See also:MSS. was both laborious and brilliant, and greatly extended the knowledge of Plautus and of the ancient Latin drama. Of this, two striking examples may be cited.

By the aid of the Ambrosian palimpsest he recovered the name T. Maccius Plautus, for the See also:

vulgate M. See also:Accius, and proved it correct by strong extraneous arguments. On the margin of the See also:Palatine MSS. the marks C and DV continually recur, and had been variously explained. Ritschl proved that they meant " Canticum " and " Diverbium," and hence showed that in the See also:Roman See also:comedy only the conversations in See also:iambic senarii were not intended for the singing See also:voice. Thus was brought into strong See also:relief a fact without which there can be no true appreciation of Plautus, viz. that his plays were comic operas rather than comic dramas. In conjectural See also:criticism Ritschl was inferior not only to his great predecessors but to some of his contemporaries. His See also:imagination was in this See also:field (but in this field only) hampered by erudition, and his See also:judgment was unconsciously warped by the See also:desire to find in his See also:text illustrations of his discoveries. But still a See also:fair proportion of his textual labours: has stood the test of time, and he rendered immense service by his study of Plautine metres, a field in which little advance had been made since the time of Bentley. In this See also:matter Ritschl was aided by an accomplishment rare (as he himself lamented) in Germany the art of See also:writing Latin See also:verse. In spite of the incompleteness, on many sides, of his work Ritschl must be assigned a place in the See also:history of learning among a very select few. His studies are presented principally in his Opuscula collected partly before and partly since his death.

The Trinummus (twice edited) was the only specimen of his contemplated edition of Plautus which he completed. The edition has been continued by some of his pupils—See also:

Goetz, Loewe and others. - The facts of Ritschl's life may be best Iearned from the elaborate See also:biography by Otto Ribbeck (Leipzig, 1879). An interesting anddiscriminating estimate of Ritschl's work is that by See also:Lucian Mueller (Berlin, 1877). (J. S.

End of Article: RITSCHL, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1806-1876)

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