Wilhelm Scherer
Wilhelm Scherer | |
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Birthday | |
Birthplace | Schönborn, Austrian Empire (present-day Göllersdorf, Lower Austria, Austria) |
Died |
Scherer, Wilhelm
Born Apr. 26, 1841, in Schönborn, Austria; died Aug. 6,1886, in Berlin. German philologist.
Scherer graduated from the University of Vienna in 1864. He became a professor at Vienna in 1868, at the Kaiser Wilhelm University (University of Strasbourg) in 1872, and at the University of Berlin in 1877. The leader of a school of positivist literary scholars, he advocated renunciation of the traditions of idealist metaphysics. Scherer sought to apply the rigorous methods of science to the humanities and to introduce the historical descriptive method into comparative and genetic philology. His theory governed the development of Germanic philology in Germany for many years. Scherer also studied the history of the German language.
WORKS
Istoriia nemetskoi literatury, parts 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1893. (Translated from German.)Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Berlin, 1868; 2nd ed., Berlin, 1878.
Deutsche Studien, vols. 1–3. Vienna, 1870–78.
Aus Goethes Frühzeit. Strasbourg-London, 1879.
Poetik. Berlin, 1888.