Gottlieb Christoph Harless (originally Harles) (21 June 1738 – 2 November 1815) was a German
classical scholar
Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
and
bibliographer
Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliograph ...
.
Biography
He was born at Culmbach in
Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
. He studied at the universities of
Halle,
Erlangen
Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...
and
Jena
Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
. In 1765 he was appointed professor of
oriental languages
Asia is home to hundreds of languages comprising several families and some unrelated isolates. The most spoken language families on the continent include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Japonic, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turkic, ...
and eloquence at the Gymnasium Casimirianum in
Coburg
Coburg ( , ) is a Town#Germany, town located on the Itz (river), Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Ernestine duchies, Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only ...
, in 1770 professor of
poetry
Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
and eloquence at Erlangen, and in 1776 librarian of the university. He held his professorship for forty-five years until his death.
Harless was an extremely prolific writer. His numerous editions of classical authors lack originality and critical judgment, but were valuable at the time because they summarised earlier scholarship for the benefit of the student. He is chiefly remembered for his work in connection with the great ''
Bibliotheca Graeca'' of
J. A. Fabricius, of which he published a new and revised edition (12 vols., 1790–1809, not quite completed) — a task for which he was uniquely qualified. He also wrote much on the history and bibliography of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
and
Latin literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literatur ...
.
His biography was written by his son, Johann Christian Friedrich Harless (1818).
External links
List of links to scans of ''Bibliotheca Graeca'' volumes(including volumes from Harless' edition), in the "Links Galore" spreadsheet
Notes
References
*
1738 births
1815 deaths
German classical scholars
German bibliographers
People from Erlangen
University of Halle alumni
University of Erlangen–Nuremberg alumni
Academic staff of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
University of Jena alumni
German male non-fiction writers
18th-century German scholars
{{Germany-academic-bio-stub