Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie, and the editor of Grimms' Fairy Tales. He was the older brother of Wilhelm Grimm; together, they were the literary duo known as the Brothers Grimm.

Life and books

Jacob Grimm was born 4 January 1785, in Hanau in Hesse-Kassel. His father, Philipp Grimm, was a lawyer who died while Jacob was a child, and his mother Dorothea was left with a very small income. Her sister was the lady of the chamber to the Landgravine of Hesse, and she helped to support and educate the family. Jacob was sent to the public school at Kassel in 1798 with his younger brother Wilhelm. As a result, he was dismissed from his professorship and banished from the Kingdom of Hanover in 1837. He returned to Kassel with his brother, who had also signed the protest. They remained there until 1840 when they accepted King Frederick William IV's invitation to move to the University of Berlin, where they both received professorships and were elected members of the Academy of Sciences. Grimm was not under any obligation to lecture, and seldom did so; he spent his time working with his brother on their dictionary project. During their time in Kassel, he regularly attended the meetings of the academy and read papers on varied subjects, including Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann, Friedrich Schiller, old age, and the origin of language. He described his impressions of Italian and Scandinavian travel, interspersing more general observations with linguistic details.

Grimm died in Berlin at the age of 78, working until the very end of his life. He describes his own work at the end of his autobiography:

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Nearly all my labours have been devoted, either directly or indirectly, to the investigation of our earlier language, poetry and laws. These studies may have appeared to many, and may still appear, useless; to me they have always seemed a noble and earnest task, definitely and inseparably connected with our common fatherland, and calculated to foster the love of it. My principle has always been in these investigations to under-value nothing, but to utilize the small for the illustration of the great, the popular tradition for the elucidation of the written monuments.

Politics

Jacob Grimm's work tied in strongly with his views on Germany and its culture. His work on both fairy tales and philology dealt with the country's origins. He wished for a united Germany, and, like his brother, supported the Liberal movement for a constitutional monarchy and civil liberties, as demonstrated by their involvement in the Göttingen Seven protest.

Death

Jacob Grimm died on 20 September 1863, in Berlin, Germany from disease, at the age of 78.

Works

The following is a complete list of Grimm's separately published works. Those he published with his brother are marked with a star (*). For a list of his essays in periodicals, etc., see vol. V of his Kleinere Schriften, from which the present list is taken. His life is best studied in his own Selbstbiographie, in vol. I of the Kleinere Schriften. There is also a brief memoir by Karl Goedeke in Göttinger Professoren (Gotha (Perthes), 1872).

  • Über den altdeutschen Meistergesang (Göttingen, 1811)
  • <nowiki>*</nowiki>Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin, 1812–1815) (many editions)
  • <nowiki>*</nowiki>Das Lied von Hildebrand und des Weissenbrunner Gebet (Kassel, 1812)
  • Altdeutsche Wälder (Kassel, Frankfurt, 1813–1816, 3 vols.)
  • <nowiki>*</nowiki>Der arme Heinrich von Hartmann von der Aue (Berlin, 1815)
  • Irmenstrasse und Irmensäule (Vienna, 1815)
  • <nowiki>*</nowiki>Die Lieder der alten Edda (Berlin, 1815)
  • Silva de romances viejos (Vienna, 1815)
  • <nowiki>*</nowiki>Deutsche Sagen (Berlin, 1816–1818, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1865–1866)
  • Deutsche Grammatik (Göttingen, 1819, 2nd ed., Göttingen, 1822–1840) (reprinted 1870 by Wilhelm Scherer, Berlin)
  • Wuk Stephanowitsch' Kleine Serbische Grammatik, verdeutscht mit einer Vorrede (Leipzig and Berlin, 1824) Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic – Serbian Grammar
  • Zur Recension der deutschen Grammatik (Kassel, 1826)
  • <nowiki>*</nowiki>Irische Elfenmärchen, aus dem Englischen (Leipzig, 1826)
  • Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer (Göttingen, 1828, 2nd ed., 1854)
  • Hymnorum veteris ecclesiae XXVI. interpretatio theodisca (Göttingen, 1830)
  • Reinhart Fuchs (Berlin, 1834)
  • Deutsche Mythologie (Göttingen, 1835, 3rd ed., 1854, 2 vols.)
  • Taciti Germania edidit (Göttingen, 1835)
  • Über meine Entlassung (Basel, 1838)
  • (together with Schmeller) Lateinische Gedichte des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1838)
  • Sendschreiben an Karl Lachmann über Reinhart Fuchs (Berlin, 1840)
  • Weistümer, Th. i. (Göttingen, 1840) (continued, partly by others, in 5 parts, 1840–1869)
  • Andreas und Elene (Kassel, 1840)
  • Frau Aventure (Berlin, 1842)
  • Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Leipzig, 1848, 3rd ed., 1868, 2 vols.)
  • Des Wort des Besitzes (Berlin, 1850)
  • <nowiki>*</nowiki>Deutsches Wörterbuch, Bd. i. (Leipzig, 1854)
  • Rede auf Wilhelm Grimm und Rede über das Alter (Berlin, 1868, 3rd ad., 1865)
  • Kleinere Schriften (F. Dümmler, Berlin, 1864–1884, 7 vols.).
  • vol. 1 : Reden und Abhandlungen (1864, 2nd ed. 1879)
  • vol. 2 : Abhandlungen zur Mythologie und Sittenkunde (1865)
  • vol. 3 : Abhandlungen zur Litteratur und Grammatik (1866)
  • vol. 4 : Recensionen und vermischte Aufsätze, part I (1869)
  • vol. 5 : Recensionen und vermischte Aufsätze, part II (1871)
  • vol. 6 : Recensionen und vermischte Aufsätze, part III
  • vol. 7 : Recensionen und vermischte Aufsätze, part IV (1884)

Citations

  • Works co-authored by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm: <!--Same person has multiple IDs at LV-->
  • Teutonic Mythology, English translation of Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie (1880).
  • Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Margaret Hunt (This site is the only one to feature all of the Grimms' notes translated in English along with the tales from Hunt's original edition. Andrew Lang's introduction is also included.)
  • The Grimm dictionary online
  • Biography at LeMO-Portal