Philipp Nikodemus Frischlin
Encyclopedia
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, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, and astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
, was born at Erzingen, today part of Balingen
Balingen
Balingen is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, capital of the district of Zollernalbkreis. It is located nearby the Swabian Alb, approx. 35 km to the south of Tübingen, 35 km northeast of Villingen-Schwenningen, and 60 km southwest of Stuttgart.It is home to the Bizerba and Ideal...
in Württemberg
Württemberg
Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
, where his father was parish minister.
Life
He was educated as a scholar of "Tübinger StiftTübinger Stift
The Tübinger Stift is a hall of residence and teaching; it is owned and supported by the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg, and located in the university city of Tübingen, in South West Germany. The Stift was originally founded as an Augustinian monastery in the Middle Ages...
" at the university of Tübingen, where in 1568 he was promoted to the chair of poetry and history. In 1575 for his comedy of Rebecca, which he read at Regensburg
Regensburg
Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
before the emperor Maximilian II, he was rewarded with the laureateship, and in 1577 he was made an imperial
count palatine
Count Palatine (Imperial)
The Imperial Count Palatine was a title revived by Emperor Charles IV which was based upon the former position of a Count Palatine in the royal court....
(Comes palatinus Caesareus) or Pfalzgraf.
In 1582 his unguarded language and reckless life made it necessary that he should leave Tübingen, and he accepted a mastership at Laibach in Carniola (nowadays Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
), which he held for about two years. Shortly after his return to the university in 1584, he was threatened with a criminal prosecution on a charge of immoral conduct, and the threat led to his withdrawal to Frankfurt am Main in 1587. For eighteen months he taught in the Brunswick
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
gymnasium, and he appears also to have resided occasionally at Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
and Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
. From the last-named city he wrote certain libelous letters, which led to his being arrested in March 1590. He was imprisoned in the fortress of Hohenurach
Bad Urach
Bad Urach is a town in the district of Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated 14 km east of Reutlingen, at the foot of the Swabian Alb, and is known for its spa and therapeutic bath.-History:...
, near Reutlingen
Reutlingen
Reutlingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of April 2008, it has a population of 109,828....
, where, on the night of the 29th of November 1590, he was killed by a fall in attempting to let himself down from the window of his cell.
Work
Frischlin's prolific and versatile genius produced a great variety of works, which entitle him to some rank both among poets and among scholars. In his LatinLatin
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...
verse he often successfully imitated the classical models; his comedies are not without freshness and vivacity; and some of his versions and commentaries, particularly those on the Georgics
Georgics
The Georgics is a poem in four books, likely published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. It is a poem that draws on many prior sources and influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present...
and Bucolics
Bucolics
The Eclogues is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil.Taking as his generic model the Greek Bucolica by Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome...
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...
, though now well-nigh forgotten, were important contributions to the scholarship of his time. There is no collected edition of his works, but his Opera poetica were published twelve times between 1535 and 1636.
Among those most widely known may be mentioned:
- the Hebraeis (1590), a Latin epic based on the Scripture history of the Jews
- the Elegiaca (1601), his collected lyric poetryLyric 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...
, in twenty-two books - the Opera scenica (1604) consisting of six comedies and two tragedies (among the former, Julius Caesar redivivus, completed 1584)
- the Grammatica Latina (1585)
- the versions of CallimachusCallimachusCallimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
and AristophanesAristophanesAristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete... - the commentaries on Persius and Virgil
See the monograph of David Friedrich Strauss (Leben und Schriften des Dichters und Philologen Frischlin, 1856).
Literature
- D. F. Strauß, "Leben und Schriften des Dichters und Philologen Nicodemus Frischlin", 1856.
- S. Holtz, D. Mertens (Hsg.), "Nicodemus Frischlin (1547 - 1590), poetische und prosaische Praxis unter den Bedingungen des konfessionellen Zeitalters", Stuttgart, Bad Cannstatt 1999.
- Gustav Bebermeyer: Nicodemus Frischlin. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Bd. 5, S. 620