Rudolf Gottfried Otto Harnack (23 November 1857, in

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 ...

– 22 March 1914, near

Besigheim Besigheim () is a municipality in the district of Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is situated 13 km north of Ludwigsburg at the confluence of the Neckar and Enz rivers. The town has many old buildings and a tow ...

) was a German

literary historian The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment or education to the reader, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pie ...

, best known for his writings on

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

Biography

He studied history and

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

at the universities of

Dorpat Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, receiving his doctorate at the latter institution in 1880. After graduation, he worked as a schoolteacher in

(from 1882), a school director in Wenden (from 1887), an employee of the ''Preussische Jahrbücher'' in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

(from 1889) and as a journalist in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

(from 1891). In 1896 he was named a professor of history and literature at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, then in 1905 relocated to the Technical College of Stuttgart as a professor of literature and aesthetics. On 22 March 1914 he committed suicide.Görres - Hittorp / edited by Rudolf Vierhaus
Deutsche Biographische EnzyklopaedieHarnack, Gottfried Rudolf Otto
Hessian Biography He was the son of theologian

Theodosius Harnack Theodosius Andreas Harnack (; , St. Petersburg – , Dorpat (now )) was a Baltic German theology, theologian. A professor of Divinity, he started his career as a Privatdozent for church history and homiletics at the University of Dorpat (in wha ...

, the brother of theologian

Adolf von Harnack Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack (born Harnack; 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited ...

, mathematician

Carl Gustav Axel Harnack Carl Gustav Axel Harnack (, Dorpat (now ) – 3 April 1888, Dresden) was a Baltic German mathematician who contributed to potential theory. Harnack's inequality applied to harmonic functions. He also worked on the real algebraic geometry of pla ...

and pharmacologist Erich Harnack. He was the father of screenwriter

Falk Harnack Falk Harnack (2 March 1913 – 3 September 1991) was a German director and screenwriter. During Germany's Nazi era, he was also active with the German resistance to Nazism, German Resistance and toward the end of World War II, the partisans in Gr ...

and jurist

Arvid Harnack Arvid Harnack (; 24 May 1901 – 22 December 1942) was a German jurist, Marxist economist, Communist, and German resistance fighter in Nazi Germany. Harnack came from an intellectual family and was originally a humanist. He was strongly influen ...

Selected works

* ''Goethe in der epoche seiner vollendung 1805-1832'' (1887) – Goethe in the epoch of his perfection, 1805–1832. * ''Deutsches kunstleben in Rom im zeitalter der klassik'' (1892) – German artistic life in Rome during the classical age. * ''Über Goethe's Verhältnis zu Shakespeare'' (1896) – Goethe's relationship with

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

. * ''Schiller'' (1898) – On

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

. * ''Essais und studien zur literaturgeschichte'' (1899) – Essays and studies of literary history. * ''Goethe und das Theater'' (1900) – Goethe and the theater. * ''Der gang der handlung in Goethes Faust'' (1902) – The course of action in Goethe's ''Faust''. * ''Der Deutsche Klassizismus im Zeitalter Goethes'' (1906) –

German classicism Weimar Classicism () was a German literary and cultural movement, whose practitioners established a new humanism from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. It was named after the city of Weimar in the ...

in the era of Goethe. * ''Aufsätze und vorträge'' (1911) – Articles and lectures. * Wilhelm von Humboldt (1912) – On

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...

. Also, he made contributions as an editor to Karl Heinemann's multi-volume ''Goethes Werke''.Harnack, Rudolf Gottfried Otto
IdRef (bibliography)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harnack, Otto 1857 births 1914 deaths People from Erlangen University of Göttingen alumni University of Tartu alumni Academic staff of the University of Stuttgart Academic staff of Technische Universität Darmstadt German literary historians 1914 suicides Suicides in Germany