Karl Simrock
Simrock, Karl (Bonn, 1802-76, Bonn), an adherent of the Romantic movement (see Romantik) in his youth, studied at Bonn University and entered the Prussian civil service in Berlin in 1823. A political poem (‘Drei Tage und drei Farben’), inspired by the July Revolution in Paris, caused his dismissal in 1830, whereupon, being a man of means, he withdrew into private life, pursuing literary and philological studies. In 1850 he was appointed to a newly founded chair of medieval literature at Bonn, which he retained until his death.
Simrock is chiefly known for his translations of medieval, and especially heroic, poetry. His version of the Nibelungenlied appeared in 1827 and of the Edda in 1851. Das Heldenbuch, including his translations of Kudrun and the Amelungenlied, as well as the Nibelungenlied, came out in six volumes between 1843 and 1849, and Deutsche Volksbücher in 13 volumes between 1845 and 1866. It might almost be said that Simrock translated the whole of medieval German literature: Parzival and Titurel, König Orendel (see Orendel), Der gute Gerhard, Tristan und Isolde (see Tristan), and the Heliand are random examples. His successful policy of popularization extended also to Anglo-Saxon literature (Beowulf, 1859), to the translation of poems by Shakespeare (1867), and to the 17th c. (Friedrich von Logau, 1875, Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, 1876). He published volumes of original poetry in 1844 and 1863, but only the folksong-like ‘Warnung vor dem Rhein’ (‘An den Rhein, an den Rhein, zieh nicht an den Rhein’) has survived.
