Moritz Haupt was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 philologist.

He was born at Zittau

Zittau

Zittau is a city in the south east of the Free State of Saxony, Germany, close to the border tripoint of Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. , there are 28,638 people in the city. It is part of the Görlitz district....

, in Lusatia

Lusatia

Lusatia is a historical region in Central Europe. It stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Elbe valley in the west, today located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Lower Silesian and Lubusz voivodeships of western Poland...

. His early education was mainly conducted by his father, Ernst Friedrich Haupt, burgomaster

Burgomaster

Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...

 of Zittau, a man of learning who took pleasure in translating German hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

s or Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

's poems into Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, and whose memoranda were employed by G. Freytag in his Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit. From the Zittau gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

, where he spent the five years 1821-1826, Haupt moved to the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

 intending to study theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

; but his own inclinatinos and the influence of Professor G. Hermann

Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann

Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann was a German classical scholar and philologist.-Biography:He was born at Leipzig. Entering its university at the age of fourteen, Hermann at first studied law, which he soon abandoned for the classics...

 soon turned him in the direction of classical philology.

On the close of his university course (1830) he returned to his father's house, and the next seven years were devoted to study, not only of Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 and German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, but of Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

, Provençal and Bohemian

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

. His friendship with Karl Lachmann

Karl Lachmann

Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann was a German philologist and critic.-Biography:He was born in Brunswick, in what is now Lower Saxony....

, formed at Berlin, had great effect on his intellectual development. In September 1837 he "habilitated" at Leipzig as Privatdozent, and his first lectures, dealing with such diverse subjects as Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

 and 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....

, indicated the two main strands of his interest. A new chair of German language and literature was founded for his benefit, and he became professor extraordinarius (1841) and then professor ordinarius (1843). In 1842 he married Louise Hermann, the daughter of his master and colleague.

Having taken part in 1849 with Otto Jahn

Otto Jahn

Otto Jahn , was a German archaeologist, philologist, and writer on art and music.He was born at Kiel...

 and Theodor Mommsen

Theodor Mommsen

Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist, and writer generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. His work regarding Roman history is still of fundamental importance for contemporary research...

 in a political agitation for the maintenance of the imperial constitution, Haupt was deprived of his professorship by a decree of April 22, 1855. Two years later, however, he was called to succeed Lachmann at the university of Berlin and at the same time the Berlin academy, which had made him a corresponding member in 1841, elected him an ordinary member. For twenty-one years he was prominent among the scholars of the Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n capital, making his presence felt, not only by the prestige of his erudition and the clearness of his intellect, but by the tirelessness of his energy and the ardent fearlessness of his temperament. He died of heart disease.

Haupt's critical work is distinguished by a combination of the most painstaking investigation with bold conjecture; his oft-cited dictum that "If the sense requires it, I am prepared to write Constantinopolitanus where the MSS have the monosyllabic interjection

Interjection

In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

 o" well expresses this boldness. While in his lectures and speeches he was frequently carried away by the excitement of the moment, and made sharp and questionable attacks on his opponents, in his writings he exhibits great self-control. The results of many of his researches are lost, because he would not publish what fell short of his own high ideal of excellence. To the progress of classical scholarship he contributed by Quaestiones Catullianae (1837), and editions of Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

's Halieutica and the Cynegetica of Gratius and Nemesianus (1838), of Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

, Tibullus

Tibullus

Albius Tibullus was a Latin poet and writer of elegies.Little is known about his life. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to Tibullus are of questionable origins. There are only a few references to him in later writers and a short Life of doubtful authority...

 and Propertius (3rd ccl., 1868), of Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

 (3rd ed, 1871) and of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 (2nd ccl., 1873).

As early as 1836, with Hoffmann von Fallersleben, he started the Altdeutsche Blätter, which in 1841 gave place to the Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, of which he continued editor till his death. Hartmann von Aue

Hartmann von Aue

Hartmann von Aue was a Middle High German poet. He introduced the courtly romance into German literature and, with Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg, was one of the three great epic poets of Middle High German literature...

's Erec (1839) and his Lieder, Klage and Der arme Heinrich (1842), Rudolf von Ems's Guter Gerhard (1840) and Konrad von Würzburg

Konrad von Würzburg

Konrad von Würzburg was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century.As little is known of his life as that of any other epic poet of the age. By birth probably a native of Würzburg, he seems to have spent part of his life in Strassburg and his later years in Basel, where he died...

's Engelhard (1844) are the principal German works which he edited. To form a collection of the French songs of the 16th century was one of his favourite schemes, hut a little volume published after his death, Französische Volkslieder (1877), is the only monument of his labours in that direction. Three volumes of his Opuscula were published at Leipzig (1875-1877).