Jacob Grimm: biography, life story, creativity and family

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The fairy tales of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are known all over the world. Since childhood, they are among the favorite books of almost every child. But the Grimm brothers were not just storytellers, they were great linguists and researchers of the culture of their country Germany.

Family

The ancestors of the Grimms were very educated people. A great-grandfather named Friedrich, born in 1672, was a Calvinist theologian. His son is Friedrich Jr. - inherited his father's parish and, accordingly, was a priest of the Calvinist community.

The father of famous brothers was born in 1751. Philipp Wilhelm was a lawyer, graduated from the University of Marburg. Until his early death, at the age of 44, he served as a Zemstvo judge and notary.

Philip and his wife Dorothea had five children, all sons: the eldest - Jacob Grimm, born in 1785, then Wilhelm, who was born a year later, Karl and Ferdinand were born, and the youngest was Ludwig, who became successful artist and illustrator of fairy tales of older brothers.

Despite the fact that the age difference between the brothers was small (maximum five years between the oldest andJr.), only Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm turned out to be really close to each other, whose biography proves this.

Childhood and youth

Jacob, like all his brothers, was born in the town of Hanau, where he spent his childhood.

Because their father passed away early, the family faced the question of their continued existence. The brothers' childless aunt, Juliana Charlotte, came to the rescue. However, from the very birth of Jacob, she was in the house of the Grimms. And all because of the fact that in the same 1785 she became a widow.

Yulianna was very attached to older children and gave them almost all her attention and care. The brothers paid her the same love, affectionately calling her dear Aunt Schlemmer.

Jakob Grimm later recalled that he was attached to his aunt much more than to his parents.

It was Julianne Charlotte who opened the world of knowledge to them, teaching them to read and write. It was with her that they plunged into the world of German fairy tales and biblical stories. According to one of the brothers, he understood his aunt's explanations about religion better than lectures on theology.

In 1791 the family moved to Steinau. There the children went to a local school. In 1796, trouble came to their house: on January 10, Philip died. His widow, sister and children had to move to the city of Kassel, where Jakob and Wilhelm ended up graduating from the oldest gymnasium in those lands.

The brothers entered the University of Marburg, wanting to follow in their father's footsteps and become lawyers. But they were overwhelmed by a passion for language and literature.

Some timethe brothers were taken away by the service after graduation from the university. Jacob worked for Jerome Bonaparte as a librarian. Since 1816, he began to work in the library of Kassel, while rejecting the post of professor in Bonn. In the same place, in Kassel, Wilhelm worked as a secretary.

Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Like his younger brother, Jakob Grimm was fond of folk German folklore. Perhaps that is why they ended up in the "Heidelberg Romantics" circle, which considered its mission to revive interest in German culture.

Starting from 1807, he traveled around the country (Hesse, Westphalia), collecting various legends, local folklore. A little later, Brother Wilhelm joined him.

In the collection, published in 1812, there is an indication of the source. Some tales are marked more specifically, for example, "Lady Blizzard" was told to the brothers by Wilhelm's future wife Dorothea Wild when they called in Kassel.

Other sources are designated simply by the name of the area, for example, "from Zweren", "from Hanau".

Sometimes the Grimms had to trade old stories for valuables. So, they had to change the tales of Johann Krause, the old sergeant-major, for one of the dresses.

The teacher of the gymnasium in Kassel told the brothers one of the options about "Snow White", a certain woman Maria, who spoke exclusively French, told the Grimms about the Little Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty. Perhaps because French culture was respected in her family, some of the stories were similar to those of Charles Perrault.

Jakob Grimm, whose fairy tales are loved by all the children in the world, together with his brother, published seven editions with 210 main works. The first editions were criticized, and the brothers had to work hard on them and bring them to perfection. For example, a scene of a sexual nature from the fairy tale "Rapunzel" was removed, where a girl secretly meets with a prince.

The brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm) had a great influence on other folklorists. "Rapunzel", "Cinderella", "Snow White", "The Bremen Town Musicians", "The Magic Pot", "Little Red Riding Hood" and hundreds of other fairy tales have forever entered the golden fund of children's literature.

Grimm's Law and other works

Each of the brothers worked on a personal scientific study, but their views and focus of thought were the same. Gradually moving away from folklore studies, they turned their attention to linguistic studies.

Grimms became the founders of scientific Germanic studies. Jakob devoted a lot of time to the phonetic processes of the Proto-Germanic language, and as a result, based on the research of Rasmus Rask, he was able to formulate one of the phonetic processes that eventually received the name "Grimm's law".

It talks about the so-called "consonant movement". Today it is one of the most famous phonetic laws. It was formulated in 1822.

Before this event, Jacob Grimm seriously studied the science of language. The result of this was"German grammar" in four volumes (1819-1837).

The significance of Grimm's linguistic works is enormous. Thanks to him, it was possible to finally prove that the Germanic languages \u200b\u200bbelong to the common Indo-European group.

Along with linguistic research, the scientist worked on a collection of mythological ideas of the ancient Germans. In 1835, an academic treatise was published by Jacob Grimm. "German mythology" was a kind of analogy to the book "Myths of Ancient Greece", it showed the relationship between Scandinavian and German mythology.

German Dictionary

The brothers began work on the dictionary in the 1830s. As a result, it became the largest in the history of the German language.

Actually, the idea of creating an etymological dictionary did not come from the brothers at all, but long before the start of their professional activities. But it was to them that in 1838 the publishers from Leipzig offered to prepare it.

The Grimms used the comparative-historical method when writing a dictionary in order to show the evolution of the language, its genetic links with the native speaker.

The brothers only managed to finish a few sections (A, B, C, D, E), their death prevented them from completing the work.

But the dictionary was nevertheless completed by their colleagues at the Berlin Academy of Sciences and the University of Gottingham.

Recent years

Wilhelm died in 1859 from paralysis of the lungs. Jacob outlived his brother by four years. During this time he was lecturing at the BerlinAcademy of Sciences and tirelessly worked on the "German Dictionary". Actually, death overtook him just behind the desk, where he described the word Frucht for the next section.

Jacob died of a heart attack on September 20, 1863.

Meaning

The whole life, work and philological activity of the Brothers Grimm had a huge impact not only on the inhabitants of Germany, but also on the peoples of the whole world. They made a colossal contribution to the development of linguistic science, created hundreds of immortal children's works, showed by their own example what love for the motherland and family is.