Jacob Bernays (11 September 182426 May 1881) was a German

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...

and

philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Som ...

writer.

Life

Jacob Bernays was born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

to Jewish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays (1792–1849) was a man of wide culture and the first orthodox German

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

to preach in the vernacular; his brother, Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar. Between 1844 and 1848, Bernays studied at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

, whose philological school, under

Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (4 November 1784 – 17 December 1868) was a German classical philologist and archaeologist. Biography Welcker was born at Grünberg, Hesse-Darmstadt. Having studied classical philology at the University of Giess ...

and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl (of whom Bernays became the favourite pupil), was the best in Germany. In 1853, he accepted the chair of

classical philology Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

at the newly founded Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, where he formed a close friendship with

Theodor Mommsen Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classics, classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19 ...

. In 1866, when Ritschl left Bonn for

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, Bernays returned to his old university as extraordinary professor and chief librarian. He remained in Bonn until his death on 26 May 1881. Upon his death, he bequeathed his Hebrew library to the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau.

Scholarship

Bernays was most famous for his boo
''Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles über Wirkung der Tragödie''
His medical interpretation of

catharsis Catharsis (from Greek , , meaning "purification" or "cleansing" or "clarification") is the purification and purgation of emotions through dramatic art, or it may be any extreme emotional state that results in renewal and restoration. In its lite ...

greatly influenced Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. Bernays was the first scholar to suggest that

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

's '' Protrepticus'' inspired

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the est ...

to write the '' Hortensius''. He further suggested that the ''Hortensius'' should be used as the base by which the ''Protrepticus'' could be reconstructed.Chroust, Anton-Hermann. ''Aristotle: New Light on His Life and On Some of His Lost Works, Volume 2'' Routledge, 1973. Web.
/ref>

Works

His chief works, which deal mainly with the Greek philosophers, are: *''Die Lebensbeschreibung des J.J. Scaliger'' (1855) *''Über das Phokylidische Gesicht'' (1856) *''Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles über Wirkung der Tragödie'' (1857) *''Die Chronik des Sulpicius Severus'' (1861) *''Die Dialoge des Aristoteles im Verhältniss zu seinen übrigen Werken'' (1863) *''Theophrastos' Schrift über Frömmigkeit'' (1866) *''Die Heraklitischen Briefe'' (1869) *''Lucian und die Cyniker'' (1879) *''Zwei Abhandlungen über die Aristotelische Theorie des Dramas'' (1880). The last of these was a republication of his ''Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlungen des Aristoteles über die Wirkung der Tragödie'' (1857), which aroused considerable controversy.

Notes

References

*Notices in ''Biographisches Jahrbuch für Alterthumskunde'' (1881), and '' Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'', xlvi. (1902) *article in the ''

Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...

'' * John Edwin Sandys, ''History of Class. Schol.'' iii. I 76 (1908). *

Arnaldo Momigliano Arnaldo Dante Momigliano (5 September 1908 – 1 September 1987) was an Italian historian of classical antiquity, known for his work in historiography, and characterised by Donald Kagan as "the world's leading student of the writing of history i ...

, ''Jacob Bernays'', in Id., '' Pagine ebraiche'', a cura di Silvia Berti, Einaudi, Torino 1987, pp. 167–180. *Bollack, Jean, ''Ein Mensch zwischen zwei Welten: der Philologe Jacob Bernays''. Goettingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2009. *''Du, von dem ich lebe! Letters to Paul Heyse''. Ed. W. M.Calder III & Timo, Günther. Wallstein, Göttingen 2010. *Ugolini, Gherardo. ''Jacob Bernays e l’interpretazione medico-omeopatica della catarsi tragica. Con traduzione del saggio di Bernays, Grundzüge der verlorenen Abhandlung des Aristoteles über Wirkung der Tragödie (1857)'', Cierre Grafica, Verona 2012. Attribution *

External links