See also: Grimm

Under the name of brothers Grimm , one indicates both linguists, philologists and collectors of Conte S Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859).

Life

Childhood and studies

The family is originating in Hesse. The grandparents and back grandparents were of reformed confession. The parents Philipp Wilhelm and Dorothea Grimm had nine children whose alone Ferdinand, Ludwig, Emil, Charlotte, Jacob, Wilhelm and Carl survived. The native house of the Grimm brothers gives on the old place of weapons of the town of Hanau close to Frankfurt on the Hand. Jacob was born the January 4th 1785 and Wilhelm the February 24th 1786. In January 1791, the father, Philipp was named civil servant in his birthplace of Steinau in Kinzig where the family moved in. It is in 1796 that their father at the 45 years died age. The mother, in order to assure elder all the her chances to reach a legal career sent the two children near their aunt in the town of Kassel. Jacob attended the university of Marbourg and studied the right there while his/her brother joined it later one year to follow the same course. One their professors, Friedrich Carl von Savigny, opened its library deprived to the young students avid of knowing and already set on Goethe and Schiller, to make them discover the romantic ones and the Minnesänger.

Savigny worked with a history of the Roman empire and went to Paris in 1804 for its research. In January 1805, it invited Jacob there to join it, which the latter made without delay. In the capacity as assistance, it leant during several months on the legal literature. To this time its distance goes back from the legal topics; it paid, in its correspondence, not to more want to devote itself but to research on the “splendid literature of former German” to which it was already, with his/her Wilhelm brother, interested.

Beginnings

At the end of 1805, Jacob Grimm returned to Kassel where meanwhile his/her mother had come to settle. The following year in 1806, Wilhelm Grimm finished its studies with Marbourg. They lived together with their mother with Kassel. Jacob found a place of secretary at the school of war of Kassel. Following the Napoleonean war against the Prussia and the Russia, which began shortly after its nomination and which saw the influence of Napoleon on Kassel, the school of war was reformed and Jacob was again in load of the supply of the fighting troops, which displeased to him and pushed it to leave its station. Wilhelm Grimm, of a fragile constitution, was at that time without employment. Of this desilvered period but which found them very justified, date the beginning of the compilation of the tales and stories which reached us today.

After the death of their mother on May 27th, 1808, Jacob had to deal with all the family in the capacity as elder. He thus took in Kassel a position of director of the private library of Jerome Bonaparte (brother of Napoleon, and recently made king of the young kingdom of Westphalia). Although it was not constrained with this position and devoted most of its time to its studies, Jacob occupied during the year a 1809 place of assessor to the Council of State.

In 1809, Wilhelm because of its disease, carried out a cure with Halle which also had to be financed by Jacob. It resided at the castle of Giebichenstein (which belonged to the type-setter Johann Friedrich Reichardt) and finally at Berlin where it met Clemens Brentano with which it became acquainted with writers and Berliner artists such as for example Ludwig Achim von Arnim. At the time of its return voyage to Kassel, Wilhelm met also Johann Wolfgang von Goethe which ensured it in its “efforts in favor of a long and forgotten culture”.

Since 1806, the Grimm brothers had gathered tales and since 1807 had published in reviews of the articles on the Masters troubadours. As from 1810, the Grimm brothers found themselves again together in Kassel and in 1811, Jacob made appear to its first work on the main German singers ( Über den altdeutschen Meistergesang ).

After the battle of Leipzig in 1813, the kingdom of Westphalia was dissolved and the electorate of restored Hesse. Jacob Grimm there lost his place of director of the royal library, but found soon a situation near the prince voter as a secretary of legation. In its new diplomatic functions, it went back to Paris in 1814, where it employed its leisures with new research in library. If he liked the voyages, he regretted however that these activities held it distant from its literary research in its country.

Collectors of tales and legends

Wilhelm Grimm meanwhile had published its first book in 1811, of the translations of old Danish legends ( Altdänische Heldenlieder ). The first common work of the two brothers, on the Hildebrandslied and the Wessobruner Gebet , was published in 1812. It was followed in December of the same year of a first collection of Contes of childhood and hearth ( Kinder- und Hausmärchen ), drawn with 900 specimens. The two brothers also tested themselves with a German edition of the Edda, as well as Reineke Fuchs (a German version of the Romance of Renart), work which remained however a long time unfinished. From 1813 to 1816, the brothers also contributed to the review Altdeutsche Wälder , devoted to the old German literature, but which knew only three numbers.

In 1814, Wilhelm Grimm became secretary of the library of the museum of Kassel and settled in Wilhemshöher Tor, in a housing pertaining to the house of the prince voter of Hesse, where his/her Jacob brother joined it on his return of Paris. In 1815, Jacob Grimm attended the Congrès of Vienna as a secretary of the delegation hessoise, then remained again in Paris in September 1815 for a diplomatic mission. Thereafter, it left the diplomatic career definitively to be able to devote itself exclusively to the study, the classification and the comment of the literature and the historical uses. This same year 1815, beside a work of mythological studies ( Irmenstraße und Irmensäule ), it published a critical choice of old Spanish lovesongs ( Silva of lovesongs viejos ).

In 1815, the Grimm brothers produced the second volume of the Contes of childhood and the hearth , reprinted in form increased in 1819. The remarks on the tales of two volumes were published in a third in 1822. A new publication in a form reduced to a volume followed in 1825, which contributed largely to the popularity of the tales. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm obtained that this edition was illustrated by their brother Ludwig Emil Grimm. As from 1823 appeared an illustrated English edition of the Contes of childhood and hearth . The alive one even of the two brothers appeared seven impressions of the edition in three volumes of the tales and ten of the edition reduced to a volume.

In years 1816 and 1818 followed the two volumes of a collection of Légende S ( Deutsche Sagen ). The two brothers had initially collected tales and legends indifferently; it is difficult to separate them on sets of themes criteria, and the brothers did not do it in a followed way. However, the tales go back essentially to oral sources, while the legends are based well more on written sources. The collection of the tales as of the legends was completed about at the same time, since 1812, the time of six years publication being explained by the absorbing work of composition of a publishable text. The collection of legends did not meet however a remarkable success, and was thus not reprinted the alive one of the brothers.

At the 30 years age, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm had already acquired an eminent position from their many publications. They lived together in Kassel, on the only modest wages of Wilhelm during a time. It was only in April 1816 that Jacob Grimm became second librarian with Kassel, at the sides of Wilhelm which had exerted for two years as secretary. Their work consisted to lend, seek and classify the works. Beside these official functions, they had the possibility of on the spot undertaking their own research, which was greeted in 1819 by a doctorate honoris causa of the university of Marbourg.

The Grimm brothers could not have published as much during these years without encouragements nor protections. They were initially supported by the princess Wilhelmine Karoline de Hesse. After its death in 1820 and that of the prince voter in 1821, the brothers had to move with their Lotte sister to be installed in a more modest housing, between a barracks and a forging mill, not without awkward consequences on their work. Burbot, which held until there the household, Maria a little later leaving her two brothers who moved several times and carried out during several years a life of single people.

The passion of the language

It is during this creative time that the work of Grimm Jacob on his German Grammaire places. The first volume treated inflection, the second of the formation of the words. Jacob Grimm worked there with fury, without leaving of complete manuscript, but while making print sheet after sheet as he had written enough text. The impression of the first volume extended from January 1818 to the summer 1819, the exact duration of the work of Grimm Jacob on the work. Until 1822, it worked over again the first volume in order to not include but the study of the sounds more there. As before, he wrote and made print the pages progressively, principle which he also followed for the second volume, completed in 1826. Wilhelm Grimm had published meanwhile several books on the Runes, and the German heroic Chants ( Deutsche Heldensage ), considered as its chief of work, appeared in 1829.

It was only after the marriage of Wilhelm Grimm with Henrietta Dorothea Wild into 1825 that the course of the life of the two brothers had been suddenly stabilized. They continued to live together, in three from now on before are not born soon from the children in Wilhelm and “Dortchen”. In 1829 however, after respectively 13 and 15 years with the service of the library of Kassel, the two brothers gave their resignation. After the death of the director, the prince voter Guillaume II of Hesse not having allotted the station to Jacob, the brothers answered a proposal of the library of the university of Göttingen, in Hanover.

They continued their joint life there. Jacob Grimm exerted as full professor, Wilhelm as librarian then as from 1835 as professor also. Jacob Grimm published two additional volumes of his grammar until 1837. He could also finish in 1834 the work started in 1811 on Reinhard (Reineke) Fuchs , and composed a work on the Germanic Mythologie ( Deutsche Mythologie , 1835). Wilhelm Grimm was occupied almost with him only of the third impression of the Kinder- und hausmärchen in 1837.

In 1837, the king of Hanover, of Great Britain and Ireland Guillaume IV died, and crowns it of Hanover passed to his/her brother Ernest-Auguste Ier. Authoritative tendencies, this one quickly revoked the relatively liberal constitution granted by its predecessor, to which the civils servant had lent oath. Seven professors of the university of Göttingen then signed a letter of solemn protest, among which Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The king retorted by revoking the professors immediately, and by banishing three of his states, among which Jacob Grimm. This business known as of the Seven of Göttingen ( ) had a great repercussion in Germany.

The German dictionary

The brothers were turned over from there to Kassel where they remained without employment, until the king Frederic-Guillaume IV of Prussia invited them like members of the Academy of Science and professors to the Université Humboldt. The two brothers answered this offer and settled definitively in Berlin. Jacob undertook several voyages however thereafter abroad, and was appointed with the Parlement of Frankfurt in 1848 with several of his former colleagues of Göttingen.

During this Berliner period, the two brothers devoted themselves mainly to a colossal work: the drafting of a historical dictionary of the German language, which would present of it each word with its origin, its evolution, its uses and its significance.

But the two brothers had underestimated work to be achieved. Although having begun this task in 1838 after their reference of Göttingen, the first volume appeared only in 1854 and only some volumes could be published of their alive. Several generations of Germanists will continue this work, and hundred twenty-three years later, the January 4th 1961 the 32e volume of this German dictionary was finally published. In 1957, a new revision of this gigantic work was started and the first volume of this work was published in 1965. In 2004, the whole of the dictionary was published in the form of CD-ROM by the editions Zweitausendeins (Francfort-sur-le-Main).

Wilhelm Grimm died the December 16th 1859. The academy of Berlin wrote in January 1860: To the 16 of last month is deceased Wilhelm Grimm, member of the academy, which made shine its name under German and collecting linguist of legends and poems. The German people are also accustomed to associate it with his Jacob older brother. Few men are honoured and liked like are the Grimm brothers, who in the one half-century space supported themselves reciprocally and makes known in a common work. Jacob only continued their work, before dying in its turn the September 20th 1863. The two brothers rest together with the cemetery of Matthäus, in Berlin-Schöneberg.

Works

Common works most significant Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are their collection of tales for children, their collection of legends, like their dictionary.

Jacob Grimm contributed shares of first importance to German linguistics then incipient, which contributed to found historical and compared grammar. It is in the 2nd edition of its German Grammaire that Jacob Grimm described the sound laws regulating the evolution of the consonants in the Germanic languages, known since under the name of Loi of Grimm. He is also the author of a Histoire of the German language ( Geschichte DER deutschen Sprache ).

The type-setter Richard Wagner took as a starting point several legends collected by the two brothers for the composition by his operas, as well as German Mythologie Grimm Jacob for his Tétralogie .

Chronology of the publications

Works of Grimm Jacob

  • Über den altdeutschen Meistergesang (Göttingen, 1811)

  • Irmenstrasse und Irmensäul E (Wien, 1815)
  • Silva of lovesongs viejos (Wien, 1815)
  • Deutsche Grammatik (Göttingen, 1819-1840)
  • Hausbüchel für unser Lebenlang (Kassel, 1820)
  • Wuk Stephanowitsch, kleine serbische Grammatik, verdeutscht (Leipzig und Berlin, 1824)
  • Zur Rezension DER deutschen Grammatik, unwiderlegt herausgegeben (Kassel, 1826)
  • Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer (Göttingen, 1828. 2nd ED., 1854)
  • Hymnorum veteris ecclesiae XXVI interpretatio Theodisca nunc primum published (Göttingen, 1830)
  • Reinhart Fuchs (Berlin, 1834)
  • Deutsche Mythologie (Göttingen, 1835. 2nd ED., 1844. 3rd ED. 1854,2 flights.)
  • Taciti Germania edidit (Göttingen, 1835)
  • Über meine Entlassung (Basel, 1838)
  • Lateinische Gedichte of X. und XI. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1838)
  • Sendschreiben year Karl Lachmann über Reinhart Fuchs (Berlin, 1840)
  • eistümer (Teil 1, Göttingen, 1840. Teil 2,1840. Teil 3,1842. Teil 4,1863. Teil 5,1866. Teil 6,1869. Teil 7,1878)
  • Andreas und Elene (Gedicht), herausgegeben (Kassel, 1840)
  • Frau Aventiure klopft year Beneckes Tür (Berlin, 1842)
  • Geschichte DER deutschen Sprache (Leipzig, 1848. 2nd ED., 1853,2 vol.)
  • Das Wort of Besitzes (Berlin, 1850)
  • Rede auf Wilhelm Grimm und Rede über das Alter (Berlin, 1868. 3rd ED. 1865)
  • Kleinere Schriften (Berlin, 1864-1870, 8 vol.)

Works of Wilhelm Grimm

  • Altdänische Heldenlieder, Balladen und Märchen übersetzt (Heidelberg, 1811)

  • Drei altschottische Lieder in Original und Übersetzung (Heidelberg, 1813)
  • Über deutsche Runen (Göttingen, 1821)
  • Zur Literatur der Runen (Wien, 1828)
  • Grâve Ruodolf (Göttingen, 1828 and 1844)
  • Die deutsche Heldensage (Göttingen, 1829. 2nd ED., 1867)
  • De Hildebrando antiquissimi carminis teutonici fragmentum (Göttingen, 1930)
  • Vrîdankes Bescheidenheit (Göttingen, 1834. 2nd ED., 1860)
  • Der Rosengarten (Göttingen, 1836)
  • Ruolandes liet (Göttingen, 1838)
  • Wernher vom Niederrhein (Göttingen, 1839)
  • Konrads von Würzburg Goldene Schmiede (Berlin, 1840)
  • Konrads von Würzburg Silvester (Göttingen, 1841)
  • Über Freidank (Göttingen, 1855)
  • Kleinere Schriften (Berlin, 1881,4 vol.)

Common works

  • Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin, 1812; many later editions)

  • Die beiden ältesten deutschen Gedichte aus dem 8. Jahrhundert: Das Lied von Hildebrand und Hadubrand und das Wessobrunner Gebet herausgegeben (Kassel, 1812)
  • Altdeutsche Wälder herausgegeben (1st vol., Kassel, 1813. 2nd and 3rd vol., Frankfurt, 1815 and 1816)
  • DER Arms Heinrich von Hartmann v. D. Aue herausgegeben (Berlin, 1815)
  • Lieder DER alten Edda herausgegeben (Berlin, 1815)
  • Deutsche Sagen (Berlin, 1816-1818. 2nd ED., Berlin, 1865-1866)
  • Irische Elfenmärchen (Leipzig, 1826)
  • Deutsches Wörterbuch (volume 1: of has at Biermolke, Leipzig, 1854. Volume 2: of Biermörder with D, 1860. Volume 3: E with Forsche, 1862. Volume 4, by J. Grimm, Karl Weigand and R. Hildebrand: of Forschel with Gefolgsmann, 1878).

The most famous tales

The most famous legends

See too

Internal bonds

  • the Brothers Grimm: American film of Terry Gilliam, left in 2005, very freely inspired of certain tales of the two brothers.

  • Law of Grimm: one of the most famous laws of Phonetic history.
  • Nickel silver Grimm: man of letters of the 18th century, without bond with the Grimm brothers.

External bonds

  • Some tales, original texts in French translation copyleft. Collective site the house of Bories .

  • Important selection of tales of Grimm in French language. Personal site Fairy small bell devoted to the tale, the storytellers and the merveilleux.
  • Small selection of tales. Site Contemania devoted to the traditional tales for the children.

Bibliographical references

Works of the Grimm brothers

  • Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Tales, Kinder- und Hausmärchen , Flammarion, coll “the Golden age”, Paris, 1967,2 vol., 521 + 526 p. integral Version of the German popular Tales of the Grimm brothers, translated and presented by Armel Guerne. ISBN 2-08-213003-7 (T. 1), ISBN 2-08-213004-5 (T. 2); republication the Threshold, 2003.

Studies on the Grimm brothers

  • François Mathieu, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: It was once… , Editions of the Jasmine, Clichy, 2003. 195 p. (Signs of life). ISBN 2-912080-51-7
  • Ludwig Denecke, Jacob Grimm und center Bruder Wilhelm , J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1971. 238 p. (Sammlung Metzler; 100). Complete bibliography of the works, the correspondence and other writings of the Grimm brothers. ISBN 3-476-10100-2
  • Hermann Gerstner (ED.), Brüder Grimm: put Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten , Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Hamburg, 1973. 157 p. (Rowohlts Monographien; 201). ISBN 3-499-50201-1.
  • Hermann Gerstner, Die Brüder Grimm , Hohenloher Druck- und Verlagshaus, Gerabronn, Crailsheim, 1970. 472 p. ISBN 3-7504-00292069-0
  • Gabriele Seitz, Die Brüder Grimm: Leben - Werk - Zeit , Winkler, München 1984. 191 p. ISBN 3-538-06748-1

Simple: Brothers Grimm Zh-min-nan: Grimm Hiaⁿ-tī Zh-yue: 格林兄弟

Random links:Claude Parent | Geum chiloense | Vector of wave | Albert Gottfried Dietrich | Scipion