Maximilian Kaluza (22 September 1856 in
Ratibor,
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...
– 1 December 1921 in
Königsberg
Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
,
East Prussia
East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
) was a German scholar of English philology.
Life
Maximilian "Max" Kaluza studied from 1873 to 1877 at the
Matthias Gymnasium Matthias is a name derived from the Greek Ματθαίος, in origin similar to Matthew.
Notable people
Notable people named Matthias include the following:
Religion
* Saint Matthias, chosen as an apostle in Acts 1:21–26 to replace Judas Isca ...
in
Wroclaw and was awarded his Ph.D. with a dissertation on the relationship of the Middle English alliterative poem ''
William of Palerne
''Guillaume de Palerne'' or in modern spelling '' Palerme'' ("William of Palerne" or "Palermo") is a French romance poem, later translated into Middle English where it is also known as ''William and the Werewolf''. The French verse romance is t ...
'' to its French models on 12 January 1881. After passing the ''
Staatsexamen
The ("state examination" or "exam by state"; pl.: ''Staatsexamina'') is a German government licensing examination that future physicians, dentists, physical therapists, teachers, research librarians, archivists, pharmacists, food chemists, psyc ...
'' in December 1881, he was a probationary candidate and assistant teacher at the Gymnasium in
Racibórz
Racibórz (, , , ) is a city in Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland. It is the administrative seat of Racibórz County.
With Opole, Racibórz is one of the historic capitals of Upper Silesia, being the residence of the Duchy of Racibórz, Du ...
from 1882 to 1884, and from 1884 to 1887 a high school teacher in
Opole
Opole (; ; ; ) is a city located in southern Poland on the Oder River and the historical capital of Upper Silesia. With a population of approximately 127,387 as of the 2021 census, it is the capital of Opole Voivodeship (province) and the seat of ...
.
On 17 May 1887 Kaluza completed his ''
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
'' at the
Albertus-Universität Königsberg with a text about the manuscript transmission of the Middle English poem ''
Libeaus Desconus'', becoming a professor of English language and literature. From July 1894 he was at the university as an adjunct professor and director of the English Seminar and after June 1902 a full professor. He retired during the summer of 1921.
Among Kaluza's research was an observation concerning the metrical characteristics of unstressed vowels in the
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
poem ''
Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...
'', on which the name '
Kaluza's law' was later bestowed, apparently by
R. D. Fulk
Robert Dennis Fulk (born October 2, 1951) is an American philologist and medievalist who is Professor Emeritus of English and Germanic Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.
Biography
Fulk was born in Chicago on October 2, 1951. He received ...
.
[Eric Weiskott, 'A Semantic Replacement for Kaluza's Law in ''Beowulf''', ''English Studies'', 93.8 (2012), 891-96 (fn. 1) .] The significance of Kaluza's observations for the dating of ''Beowulf'' has been debated extensively.
His son
Theodor Kaluza
Theodor Franz Eduard Kaluza (; 9 November 1885 – 19 January 1954) was a German mathematician and physicist known for the Kaluza–Klein theory, involving field equations in five-dimensional space-time. His idea that fundamental forces can b ...
(1885-1954) was a German physicist, and his grandson Theodor Kaluza (1910-1994) a mathematician.
Selected publications
* ''
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He ...
und der Rosenroman. Eine literargeschichtliche Studie''. E. Felber Verlag, Berlin 1893.
* ''Der altenglische Vers. Eine metrische Untersuchung''. E. Felber, Berlin 1894.
* with
Gustav Thurau, ''
. Ein Lebensbild'', in ''Zeitschrift für französischen und englischen Unterricht'', 3 (1904), , 385–432 (also a
separate printing by Weidmann, Berlin 1904.
* ''Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache'', 2 vols. E. Felber, Berlin 1906.
* ''Englische Metrik in historischer Entwicklung''. E. Felber, Berlin 1909.
* ''Geoffrey-Chaucer-Handbuch für Studierende. Ausgewählte Texte mit Einleitung, einem Abriss von Chaucers Versbau und Sprache und einem Wörterverzeichnis''. Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1919.
* ''Chaucer-Handbuch für Studierende. Ausgewählte Texte mit Einleitugen und einem Wörterverzeichnis'', 4th edn. B. Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1944.
* with Arthur C. Dunstan, ''Englische Phonetik mit Lesestücken''. Vereinigung wissenschaftlichen Verleger, Leipzig 1921.
* ''Geschichte der englischen Sprache''. Literatur-Agentur Danowski, Zürich 2007. (Reprint)
Sources
*
Christian Tilitzki, ''Die Albertus-Universität Königsberg – ihre Geschichte von der Reichsgründung bis zum Untergang der Provinz Ostpreußen (1871–1945)'', vol. 1 (1871–1918), Akademie Verlag 2012, , p. 559.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaluza, Max
1856 births
1921 deaths
19th-century philologists
20th-century German non-fiction writers
20th-century German philologists
Linguists from Germany
German philologists
German male non-fiction writers
People from Racibórz