Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan
Encyclopedia
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan, sometimes shortened to Wilhelm Jordan, (8 February 1819 in Insterburg
in East Prussia
, now in Russia – 25 June 1904 in Frankfurt am Main) was a German writer and politician.
and became a member of the Corps Littuania. His university friends included the liberals Rudolf von Gottschall
and Ferdinand Gregorovius
– Jordan and Gregorovius read out the poem of welcome on behalf of the student body at the ceremony of homage for the king and queen of Prussia.
Thrilled by Feuerbach and Hegel
, Jordan gave up his preacher course and switched to philosophy and the sciences. After graduating Doctor of Philosophy
at the Albertus-Universität
(1842) he moved to Berlin to work as a writer. In 1843 he was convicted of liberal anti-Christian writings and moved from Berlin to Leipzig
, where in 1845–46 he worked for the magazine Die begriffene Welt. He was expelled from Leipzig in 1846 for his political activities and moved to Bremen
, where he worked for the Bremer Zeitung, becoming its foreign correspondent in Berlin and Paris
.
From 18 May 1848 to 20 May 1849 he was the liberal member for Freienwalde in the Frankfurt Parliament
, which he called the "great university of my life". There he joined Heinrich von Gagern
and called for a greater German Empire led by Prussia
. For this reason, in a speech on 24 July 1848 in a debate about the 'Drang nach Osten
', he argued against restoring an independent Polish nation state and against supporting the Polish struggle for independence. Poles, he claimed, would soon join Russians and "life and death" struggle would ensue with Germans
On this matter he called for a "gesunden Volksegoismus" (a healthy Volk-egoism), which quickly became a buzzword for his opponent Robert Blum
and was also developed into the "national egoism" advocated by the Polish nationalist Roman Dmowski
. Jordan was also on the Marinerat in the Reichshandelsministerium (Reich trade ministry) and worked on building a national fleet.
After his retirement, he went on many lecture tours, popularising the Nibelungenlied
among other things - one of these took him to the USA in 1871. On his eightieth birthday his birthplace of Insterburg made him an honorary citizen.
and profoundly influenced by Ludwig Klages
and his school friend Theodor Lessing
. His plays, poems and novels are dominated by philosophical and scientific ideas. His main work was his Nibelungen-Epos
, written in Stabreim (alliterative verse
) - in it, he used the Old Norse saga of the same name and the Lay of Hildebrand
as his main sources but subjected the action to a time-related psychological interpretation.
In the 19th century he was often seen (in the words of René Simon Taube) as "a precursor of Nietzsche and pioneer of Darwin
in Germany". Today his work is little-known, except for his 'mysterium' Demiurgos and his translation of the Edda
, both still in use due to their sensitive language and epic depth. His Demiurgos cannot, as is generally claimed, be considered as the "first serious biography of Max Stirner
". It is more of a literary sketch rather than a biographical account of Stirner's life, especially since he is only mentioned in one section rather than throughout the work.
Chernyakhovsk
Chernyakhovsk is a town and the administrative center of Chernyakhovsky District of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Instruch and the Angrapa Rivers, forming the Pregolya...
in East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
, now in Russia – 25 June 1904 in Frankfurt am Main) was a German writer and politician.
Life
Jordan was the son of the pastor Charles Augustus Jordan and attended gymnasiums in Gumbinnen and Tilsit. From 1838 he studied theology at the University of KönigsbergUniversity of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....
and became a member of the Corps Littuania. His university friends included the liberals Rudolf von Gottschall
Rudolf von Gottschall
Rudolf Gottschall in Leipzig, since 1877: von Gottschall, was a German poet and dramatist....
and Ferdinand Gregorovius
Ferdinand Gregorovius
Ferdinand Gregorovius was a German historian who specialized in the medieval history of Rome. He is best known for Wanderjahre in Italien, his account of the walks he took through Italy in the 1850s, and the monumental Die Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter , a classic for Medieval and early...
– Jordan and Gregorovius read out the poem of welcome on behalf of the student body at the ceremony of homage for the king and queen of Prussia.
Thrilled by Feuerbach and Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
, Jordan gave up his preacher course and switched to philosophy and the sciences. After graduating Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
at the Albertus-Universität
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....
(1842) he moved to Berlin to work as a writer. In 1843 he was convicted of liberal anti-Christian writings and moved from Berlin to Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, where in 1845–46 he worked for the magazine Die begriffene Welt. He was expelled from Leipzig in 1846 for his political activities and moved to Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, where he worked for the Bremer Zeitung, becoming its foreign correspondent in Berlin and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
From 18 May 1848 to 20 May 1849 he was the liberal member for Freienwalde in the Frankfurt Parliament
Frankfurt Parliament
The Frankfurt Assembly was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany. Session was held from May 18, 1848 to May 31, 1849 in the Paulskirche at Frankfurt am Main...
, which he called the "great university of my life". There he joined Heinrich von Gagern
Heinrich von Gagern
Heinrich Wilhelm August Freiherr von Gagern was a statesman who argued for the unification of Germany.The third son of Hans Christoph Ernst, Baron von Gagern, a liberal statesman from Hesse, Heinrich von Gagern was born at Bayreuth, educated at the military academy at Munich, and, as an officer in...
and called for a greater German Empire led by Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
. For this reason, in a speech on 24 July 1848 in a debate about the 'Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten was a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. The term became a motto of the German nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century...
', he argued against restoring an independent Polish nation state and against supporting the Polish struggle for independence. Poles, he claimed, would soon join Russians and "life and death" struggle would ensue with Germans
On this matter he called for a "gesunden Volksegoismus" (a healthy Volk-egoism), which quickly became a buzzword for his opponent Robert Blum
Robert Blum
thumb|Painting by August Hunger of Robert Blum between 1845 and 1848Robert Blum was a German democratic politician, publicist, poet, publisher, revolutionist and member of the National Assembly of 1848. In his fight for a strong, unified Germany he opposed ethnocentrism and it was his strong...
and was also developed into the "national egoism" advocated by the Polish nationalist Roman Dmowski
Roman Dmowski
Roman Stanisław Dmowski was a Polish politician, statesman, and chief ideologue and co-founder of the National Democracy political movement, which was one of the strongest political camps of interwar Poland.Though a controversial personality throughout his life, Dmowski was instrumental in...
. Jordan was also on the Marinerat in the Reichshandelsministerium (Reich trade ministry) and worked on building a national fleet.
After his retirement, he went on many lecture tours, popularising the Nibelungenlied
Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....
among other things - one of these took him to the USA in 1871. On his eightieth birthday his birthplace of Insterburg made him an honorary citizen.
Work
His literary works are rooted in 19th century historicismHistoricism
Historicism is a mode of thinking that assigns a central and basic significance to a specific context, such as historical period, geographical place and local culture. As such it is in contrast to individualist theories of knowledges such as empiricism and rationalism, which neglect the role of...
and profoundly influenced by Ludwig Klages
Ludwig Klages
Ludwig Klages was a German philosopher, psychologist and a theoretician in the field of handwriting analysis.-Life:...
and his school friend Theodor Lessing
Theodor Lessing
Theodor Lessing was a German Jewish philosopher.He is known for opposing the rise of Hindenburg as president of the Weimar Republic and for his classic on Jewish self-hatred , a book which he wrote in 1930, three years before Hitler came to power, in which he tried to explain the phenomenon of...
. His plays, poems and novels are dominated by philosophical and scientific ideas. His main work was his Nibelungen-Epos
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, written in Stabreim (alliterative verse
Alliterative verse
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of many Germanic...
) - in it, he used the Old Norse saga of the same name and the Lay of Hildebrand
Lay of Hildebrand
The Lay of Hildebrand is a heroic lay, written in Old High German alliterative verse. It is one of the earliest literary works in German, and it tells of the tragic encounter in battle between a son and his unrecognized father...
as his main sources but subjected the action to a time-related psychological interpretation.
In the 19th century he was often seen (in the words of René Simon Taube) as "a precursor of Nietzsche and pioneer of Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
in Germany". Today his work is little-known, except for his 'mysterium' Demiurgos and his translation of the Edda
Edda
The term Edda applies to the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, both of which were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching into the Viking Age...
, both still in use due to their sensitive language and epic depth. His Demiurgos cannot, as is generally claimed, be considered as the "first serious biography of Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
". It is more of a literary sketch rather than a biographical account of Stirner's life, especially since he is only mentioned in one section rather than throughout the work.
List of works
- Irdische Phantasien (lyric poemLyric poetryLyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
, 1842) - Schaum (lyric poem, 1846)
- Demiurgos (Mysterium, 1852)
- Die Witwe des Agis (play, 1857)
- Die Nibelungen (epic poem, 1867)
- Durchs Ohr (LustspielComedyComedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
, 1870) - Strophen und Stäbe (lyric poem, 1871)
- Artur Arden (play, 1872)
- Hildebrandts Heimkehr (epic poemEpic poetryAn epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, 1874) - Epische Briefe (1876)
- Andachten (lyric poem, 1877)
- Sein Zwillingsbruder (Lustspiel, 1883)
- Tausch enttäuscht (Lustspiel, 1884)
- Die Sebald (novel, 1885)
- Zwei Wiegen (novel, 1887)
- Feli Dora (verse novella, 1889)
- Edda-Übersetzung (1889) (republished, Arun-Verlag, Engerda 2002, ISBN 3-935581-03-3)
- Deutsche Hiebe (lyric poem, 1891)
- Die Liebesleugner (Lustspiel, 1892)
- Liebe, was du lieben darfst (Lustspiel, 1892)
- Letzte Lieder (lyric poem, 1892)
- Demiurgos. Ein Mysterium. Sechstes Buch (1854). Leipzig 1999. Stirneriana Heft 16. ISBN 3-933287-29-4