JOHANN GOTTFRIED

JAKOB

See also:

• JOHANN GOTTFRIED JAKOB HERMANN (1772–1848)
• HERMANN, KARL FRIEDRICH (1804–1855)

HERMANN (1772–1848)  , German classical scholar and philologist, was born at Leipzig on the 28th of November 1772 . Entering the university of his native city at the age of fourteen, Hermann at first studied law, which he soon abandoned for the classics . After a session at Jena in 1793–1794, he became a lecturer on classical literature in Leipzig, in 1798 professor extraordinarius of philosophy in the university, and in 1803 professor of eloquence (and poetry, 1809) . He died on the 31st of December '848 . Hermann maintained that an accurate knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages was the only road to a clear understanding of the intellectual life of the ancient world, and the chief, if not the only, aim of philology . As the leader of this grammatico-critical school, he came into collision with A . Bockh and Otfried Muller, the representatives of the historico-antiquarian school, which regarded Hermann's view of philology as inadequate and one-sided . Hermann devoted his early attention to the classical poetical metres, and published several works on that subject, the most important being Elementa doctrinae metricae (18'6), in which he set forth a scientific theory based on the Kantian categories . His writings on Greek grammar are also valuable, especially De emendanda ratione Graecae grammaticae (18o'), and notes and excursus on Viger's treatise on Greek idioms . His editions of the classics include several of the plays of Euripides; the Clouds of Aristophanes (1799); Trinummus of Plautus ('Soo); Poetica of Aristotle (1802); Orphica (1805); the Homeric Hymns (18o6); and the Lexicon of Photius (18o8) . In 1825 Hermann finished the edition of Sophocles begun by Erfurdt . His edition of Aeschylus was published after his death in '852 .

The Opuscula, a collection of his smaller writings in Latin, appeared in seven volumes between 1827 and 1839 . See monographs by O .

Jahn (1849) and H . Kochly (1874); C . Bursian, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in Deutschland (1883) ; art. in Allgem. deutsche Biog . ; Sandys, His' . Class . Schol. iii .