Ferdinand Gotthelf Hand (15 February 1786 – 14 March 1851),

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

classical scholar, was born at

Plauen Plauen (; ; ) is a town in Saxony, Germany with a population of around 65,000. It is Saxony's 5th most populated city after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the largest cit ...

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

He studied at

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. In 1810 he became professor at the

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

gymnasium, and in 1817 professor of philosophy and

Greek literature Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving wri ...

at the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

, where he remained till his death. The work by which Hand is chiefly known is his (unfinished) edition of the treatise of Horatius Tursellinus ( Orazio Torsellino, 1545–1599) on the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

particles (''Tursellinus, seu de particulis Latinis commentarii'', 1829–1845). Like his treatise on Latin style (''Lehrbuch des lateinischen Stils'', 3rd ed. by H.L. Schmitt, 1880), it is too abstruse and philosophical for the use of the ordinary student. Hand was also an enthusiastic musician, and in his "''Asthetik der Tonkunst''" (1837-1841) he was the first to introduce the subject of

musical aesthetics Aesthetics of music is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty and taste in music, and with the creation or appreciation of beauty in music. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics expl ...

. The first part of the last-named work has been translated into English by W.E. Lawson ("''Aesthetics of Musical Art, or The Beautiful in Music''", 1880), and B. Sears's "''Classical Studies''" (1849) contains a "History of the Origin and Progress of the Latin Language", abridged from Hand's work on the subject. There is a memoir of his life and work by

Gustav Queck Gustav Adolf Queck (18 March 1822, Zadelsdorf – 1897, Treptow an der Rega) was a German educator and classical philologist. From 1841 to 1845 he studied philology at the University of Jena. Following graduation he worked as a schoolteache ...

(Jena, 1852).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hand, Ferdinand 1786 births 1851 deaths German classical scholars People from Plauen Leipzig University alumni Academic staff of the University of Jena Philosophers of music German philosophers of art People from the Kingdom of Saxony