Karl Elze
{{short description|German scholar and Shakespearean critic (1821–1889)}}
{{Infobox person
|image =
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|name = Karl Friedrich Elze
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1821|05|22|df=y}}
|birth_place = Dessau
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1889|01|21|1821|05|22|df=y}}
|death_place = Halle
|death_cause =
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|nationality =
|education = Leipzig University PhD.
|alma_mater =
|occupation = Shakespeare scholar
|spouse =
|children =
|parents = Karl August Wilhelm Elze
|footnotes =
}}
Karl Friedrich Elze (22 May 1821, Dessau{{snd}}21 January 1889, Halle) was a German scholar and Shakespearean critic.
Life
He was the son of Pastor Karl August Wilhelm Elze. He studied (1839–1843) classical philology, and modern, but especially English, literature at the University of Leipzig where he obtained his PhD. He was a master for a time in the gymnasium (preparatory school) at Dessau, and in 1875 was appointed extraordinary, and in 1876 ordinary, professor of English philology at the University of Halle.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Elze, Karl|volume=9|page=304}} The course catalogue for the winter 1875/76 has a four-hour lecture on the history of English literature one hour each day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays and Saturdays he publicly lectured on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.[http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.anglistik.uni-halle.de%2Fallgemeines%2Fgeschichte%2F%23anchor1963507 History of the Institute of English studies at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg] by Dietmar Schneider and Dorothea Sommer (August 8, 2013)
Elze began his literary career with the Englischer Liederschatz (1851), an anthology of English lyrics, edited for a while a critical periodical Atlantis, and in 1857 published an edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet with critical notes. He also edited George Chapman's Alphonsus (1867) and wrote biographies of Walter Scott, Byron and Shakespeare; Abhandlungen zu Shakespeare (English translation by D Schmitz, as Essays on Shakespeare, London, 1874),{{citation |title=Essays on Shakespeare (PCMI collection) |author=Karl Elze |translator=L. Dora Schmitz |publisher=Macmillan and Company |year=1874 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r54NAAAAIAAJ}} and the treatise, Notes on Elizabethan Dramatists with conjectural emendations of the text (3 volumes, Halle, 1880–1886, new ed. 1889).
He was politically active as a member of the Dessau-ischen for many years and presented a programmatic script to the Constitution of the Duchy of 1848 and promoted the idea that "Freedom of religion should be granted without Government controls".[http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catalogus-professorum-halensis.de%2Felzekarl.html Karl Elze] (German-English) Catalogus Professorum Halensis
References
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Category:People from Dessau-Roßlau
Category:People from Anhalt-Dessau
Category:German literary critics
Category:Leipzig University alumni
Category:Academic staff of the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
Category:Shakespearean scholars
Category:German male dramatists and playwrights
Category:19th-century German dramatists and playwrights