Werner Habicht (29 January 1930 – 5 November 2022) was a German scholar of English literature and culture and an internationally acclaimed authority in the field of

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 ...

studies in particular. During his academic career, he held Chairs in English Studies at the Universities of

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

(1966–70),

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

(1970-78), and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

(1978–95). Between 1976 and 1987 he was President of the West German branch of the German Shakespeare Society (Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft).

Education

Born in 1930 in

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a town#Germany, city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding Schweinfurt (district), district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultur ...

, Habicht studied English and Romance Studies at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich,

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

in Baltimore, MD, and the Universities of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

. After completion of the teacher-training ‘

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 1954, he was awarded his doctorate at the LMU in 1957, and – following a period as a Research Associate at both the LMU and the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

– achieved

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 ...

in Munich in 1965.

Career

Habicht’s professorial career at Heidelberg, Bonn, and Würzburg was interspersed with guest professorships at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

, the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

, the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

in Columbus and the

University of Cyprus The University of Cyprus (Greek language, Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Κύπρου, Turkish language, Turkish: Kıbrıs Üniversitesi) is a public university, public research institute, research university established in Cyprus in 1989. It ...

in Nicosia. Alongside his Presidency of the German Shakespeare Society between 1976 and 1987, he was a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften), as well as being a corresponding (elected) member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur) in Mainz, an honorary Vice-President of the International Shakespeare Association and an honorary member of the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association (ANZSA). In 1986 he organized the Third Congress of the International Shakespeare Association in West Berlin. Habicht was recognized as one of his generation’s leading lights in German Shakespeare Studies, as well as being a literary scholar of international renown. His research and publication profile spanned a broad epochal range, covering medieval English literature and philology (both Old and

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

), and the literatures and cultures of the

English Renaissance The English Renaissance was a Cultural movement, cultural and Art movement, artistic movement in England during the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginni ...

and the 19th and 20th Centuries. He also published prolifically on the history of translation, on literary lexicography, and on the history of the theatre, making ground-breaking contributions above all to the study of Shakespeare and his reception in Germany. In 1996 he participated in a conference on "Shakespeare in the Worlds of Communism 1920-1990" hosted by the

Folger Shakespeare Library The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materia ...

and the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., which brought together an international team of scholars and resulted in a book, to which Habicht contributed an essay on “Shakespeare and the Berlin Wall”. Alongside around 120 articles and chapters, Habicht authored seminal book-length studies on – among other subjects – the use of gesture in Medieval English poetry (1959), English dramatic form before Shakespeare (1968), Shakespeare’s place in the German literary and cultural imagination (1994), and English literature and its contexts at the close of the 16th century (1995). On the occasion of Shakespeare’s 450th birthday in 2014, he collaborated with fellow members of the Mainz Academy on the ''Shakespeare Album'': a photographic album presenting 109 portraits and autograph signatures of personalities central to the propagation of German interest in Shakespeare over the centuries. Among his philological contributions, he edited a large collection of letters of F. A. Leo (1820-1898) at the

, many of which related to the early history of the German Shakespeare Society, as well as a selection of German-language documents relating primarily to Shakespeare at the Folger Library. He was also the founding editor of ''English and American Studies in Germany'' (1969–82), editor of the ''Shakespeare Jahrbuch (West)'' between 1980 and 1995, and co-editor of a bilingual edition of Shakespeare’s plays, several volumes of essays, and a major literary encyclopaedia, ''Der Literatur Brockhaus'' (8 vols., 2nd ed. 1995).

Major publications

* ''Die Gebärde in englischen Dichtungen des Mittelalters'', Bayerischer Akademie der Wissenschaften (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1959). ''Studien zur Dramenform vor Shakespeare'' (Heidelberg: Winter, 1968). * Ed., ''English and American Studies in German (EASG): Summaries of Theses and Monographs. A Supplement to'' Anglia (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968-1983) nnual * Ed. with Ernst Leisi, Rudolph Stamm et al., ''English-deutsche Studienausgabe der Dramen Shakespeares'' (Tübingen, Stauffenburg, 1976-1997). * Ed. with Ina Schabert, ''Sympathielenkung in den Dramen Shakespeares: Studien zur publikumsbezogenen Dramaturgie'' (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1978). * Ed., ''Shakespeare Jahrbuch (West)'' (Bochum: Ferdinand Kamp, 1981-1992) nnual * Ed. with D. J. Palmer and Roger Pringle, ''Images of Shakespeare: Proceedings of the Third Congress of the International Shakespeare Association, 1986'' (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1988). * Ed., “Leo, Friedrich August. Letters mostly to him from various people”, M.S. (Washington, D.C.: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 1992). Se
here
* Ed. with G. Klotz, ''Shakespeare Jahrbuch (West)'' (Bochum: Ferdinand Kamp, 1981-1992) nnual * ''Shakespeare and the German Imagination'', International Shakespeare Association Occasional Paper No. 5 (Hertford: Stephen Austin & Sons, 1994). * ''Texte und Kontexte der englischen Literatur im Jahr 1595,'' Bayerischer Akademie der Wissenschaften (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1995). * Ed. with Dieter Lange, ''Der Literatur Brockhaus'', 8 vols (Berlin: Cornelsen, 2nd rev. pbk. ed. 1995). * “Shakespeare and the Berlin Wall”, in: ''Shakespeare in the Worlds of Communism and Socialism,'' ed. Irena R. Makaryk and Joseph G. Price (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), pp. 157–176. * Ed. with Christa Jansohn, ''Shakespeare Album'', in cooperation with the Mainzer Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Theatersammlung der Universität Köln, and the Shakespeare Library, University of Birmingham (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 2014). Se
here
* Ed. with Christa Jansohn, Dieter Mehl, and Philip Redl, ''Shakespeare unter den Deutschen'' (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2015).

References

External links

* ttps://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Foyer/EditorDetails/index.html Editorial Board: Biographies, ''Internet Shakespeare Editions.''
A tribute to Werner Habicht on his 80th Birthday in the journal, ''Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik'', 35:1 (2010).

* [https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/server/api/core/bitstreams/e2800f33-9b49-4db6-ba46-e307ae3fbc47/content An obituary to Werner Habicht in the journal, ''Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance'', 25:40 (2022).] {{DEFAULTSORT:Habicht, Werner 1930 births 2022 deaths Shakespearean scholars Scholars of German literature German Germanists [ ategory:People from Schweinfurt