Karl Otfried Müller was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 scholar and Philodorian, or admirer of ancient Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

, who introduced the modern study of Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

.

Biography

He was born at Brieg (modern Brzeg

Brzeg

Brzeg is a town in southwestern Poland with 38,496 inhabitants , situated in Silesia in the Opole Voivodeship on the left bank of the Oder...

) in Silesia

Silesia

Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

. His father was a chaplain in the Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n army, and he was raised in the atmosphere of Protestant Pietism

Pietism

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...

. He attended the gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 of his town. His university education was partly in Breslau (now Wrocław) and partly in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. In Berlin, he was spurred towards the study of Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature refers to literature written in the Ancient Greek language until the 4th century.- Classical and Pre-Classical Antiquity :...

, art and history by the influence of Philipp August Böckh

Philipp August Böckh

August Böckh was a German classical scholar and antiquarian.-Biography:He was born in Karlsruhe, and educated at the local gymnasium; in 1803 he left for the University of Halle, where he studied theology. F.A...

. In 1817, after the publication of his first work, Aegineticorum liber, on the Aeginetans

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

, he received an appointment at the Magdaleneum in Breslau, and in 1819 he was made adjunct professor of ancient literature at the University of Göttingen, his subject being the archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 and history of ancient art. He deepened his understanding of Greek art by travelling in the summer of 1822 to the Netherlands, England and France.

Turning away from the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 conception of Greek myth as a reflection of a universal religion in its infancy, Müller placed the study squarely as the outcome of an encounter between the particular character of a people

Essentialism

In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...

 and a specific historical setting, where, in the broadest sense it has remained, though his convictions that the core of each culture is uniquely its own led him to deny the influence of Egyptian art on Greek art, already being recognised at the time.

Müller's position at Göttingen was made difficult by the political troubles which followed the accession of Ernest Augustus I of Hanover

Ernest Augustus I of Hanover

Ernest Augustus I was King of Hanover from 20 June 1837 until his death. He was the fifth son and eighth child of George III, who reigned in both the United Kingdom and Hanover...

 in 1837, and he applied for permission to travel, leaving Germany in 1839. In April of the following year he reached Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, having spent the winter in Italy. He investigated the remains of ancient Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, visited numerous places in Peloponnesus, and finally went to Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

, where he began excavations. He was attacked by intermittent fever, of which he died at Athens. His grave is on the Colonus

Colonus

In classical Greece Hippeios Colonus was a deme about to the northwest of Athens, near Plato's Academy. There is also the Agoraios Kolonos , a hillock by the Athens Agora on which the temple of Hephaestus still stands.Hippeios Colonus held a temple of Poseidon and a sacred grove to the...

 hilltop in Athens next to that of Charles Lenormant

Charles Lenormant

Charles Lenormant was a French archaeologist.After pursuing his studies at the Lycée Charlemagne and the Lycée Napoléon, he took up law, but a visit to Italy and Sicily made him an enthusiastic archaeologist...

.

Works

His aim was to form a vivid conception of Greek life as a whole. Undoubtedly he wished to concentrate the results of his whole life of scholarly activity in his magnum opus

Magnum opus

Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...

, Geschichten hellenischen Stämme und Städte. However, he only managed to complete two volumes: Orchomenos und die Minyer (1820) and Die Dorier (1824). The latter includes the essay Über die Makedonier, on the settlements, origin and early history of the Macedon

Macedon

Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....

ians. He introduced a new standard of accuracy in the cartography

Cartography

Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...

 of ancient Greece. In 1828 he published Die Etrusker, a treatise on Etruscan

Etruscan civilization

Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to a civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany. The ancient Romans called its creators the Tusci or Etrusci...

 antiquities.

His Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (1825), in which he avoided the views of G. F. Creuzer

Georg Friedrich Creuzer

Georg Friedrich Creuzer was a German philologist and archaeologist.He was born at Marburg, the son of a bookbinder...

 and Christian August Lobeck, prepared the way for the scientific investigation of myth

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

s. Working without the benefit of modern understanding of psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, he offered steps towards the "internal idea" of myth and presented techniques for determining the age of a mythus from the mentions of it in literary sources and a notable chapter on how to separate the mythus from the modifications of poets and prose writers, and examined the relations that Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

 and Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

 bore to their traditions, all of this before the supportive contributions of modern archaeology, philological analysis, or the understanding of oral transmission of myth, a remarkable achievement.

The study of ancient art was promoted by his Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst (1830; 3d ed. by Welcker, 1846; English trans. by J. Leitch, London, 1850) and Denkmäler der alten Kunst (1832), which he wrote in association with Carl Oesterley

Carl Oesterley

Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Oesterley was a German painter and art historian who was a native of Göttingen. He is remembered largely for creating oil paintings with Biblical themes, and was the father of landscape painter Carl August Heinrich Ferdinand Oesterley .He studied archaeology, philosophy and...

. The latter work was continued and completed by Wieseler (1846-56).

In the last years of his life he undertook to prepare, for the English Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge , founded in 1826, and wound up in 1848, was a Whiggish London organisation that published inexpensive texts intended to adapt scientific and similarly high-minded material for the rapidly expanding reading public...

, a history of Greek literature, which in 1841 appeared posthumously as Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur bis auf das Zeitalter Alexanders (4th ed., revised and continued by Heitz, 1882-84). It was translated into English from the author's manuscript as History of the Literature of Ancient Greece and published the previous year in London. Chapters i.-xxii. were translated by Sir George Cornewall Lewis

George Cornewall Lewis

Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 2nd Baronet PC was a British statesman and man of letters.-Family:He was born in London, the son of Thomas Frankland Lewis of Harpton Court, Radnorshire and his wife Harriet Cornewall...

; chapters xxiii.-xxxvi. by J. W. Donaldson

John William Donaldson

John William Donaldson was an English philologist and biblical critic.He was born in London, and was educated at University College, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he subsequently became a fellow...

, who carried the work down to the taking of Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 by the Turks

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. It remained one of the best books on the subject for many years.

Müller also published an admirable translation of the Eumenides of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...

 with introductory essays (1833). This was the object of a profound controversy in which Gottfried Hermann and his followers attacked him with great bitterness. Müller published new editions of Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...

, De Lingua Latina (Leipzig, 1833) and Festus

Festus

Festus is a Latin word meaning "festive, festal, joyful, merry" and may refer to:* Festus, Missouri, a town in the United States*Festus, a poem by the English poet Philip James Bailey*Drew Hankinson, professional wrestler...

, De Significatione Verborum (Leipzig, 1839).

Family

His brothers were Julius Müller

Julius Müller

Julius Müller , was a German Protestant theologian.-Biography:He was born at Brieg, and studied at Breslau, Göttingen and Berlin, first law, which he later abandoned for theology. From 1825 to 1831, he was in charge of several small parishes...

 (1801–1878), a theologian, and Eduard Müller

Eduard Müller (philologist)

Eduard Müller was a teacher and philologist of Germany.-Works:* Geschichte der Theorie der Kunst bei den Alten * Simson und Delilah , a tragedy-Family:* His brother Karl Otfried Müller was a noted archaeologist, and another...

 (1804–1875), a philologist.

External links