Leon Kellner

Leon Kellner

Leon Kellner
Born (1859-04-17)17 April 1859
Tarnów, Poland
Died 5 December 1928(1928-12-05) (aged 69)
Vienna, Austria
Occupation Grammarian, Shakespearian, Zionist
Years active 1890 – 1928
Notable work Historical Outlines of English Syntax (London 1892)
Restoring Shakespeare (Leipzig 1925)

Leon Kellner (Hebrew ליאון קלנר) (17 April 1859 – 5 December 1928) was an English lexicographer, grammarian, and Shakespearian scholar. He was also a political activist and a promoter of Zionism.

Early life and education

Leon was born in Tarnów, Poland, the son of Jewish grocers Rafael and Lea Kellner. He began to learn the Hebrew alphabet at the age of three, and by five he entered a cheder to study the Torah and the Mishnah.[1]

In 1876 Kellner entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, and in 1880 he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study Germanic languages with emphasis in English language and English literature.[2]

Kellner was awarded a D.Phil. degree in 1883, and the title of his dissertation, published in 1885, was Zur Syntax des englischen Verbums, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Shakespeares (The syntax of the English verb, with special consideration in Shakespeare). Kellner traveled to London in 1887 where the Early English Text Society invited him to translate William Caxton's Blanchardyn and Eglantine. Then in 1890 Kellner received his habilitation after publishing a thesis based on original research titled Caxton’s Syntax and Style. Kellner dedicated his translation of Caxton and his habilitation thesis to Frederick James Furnivall, founder of the Early English Text Society.[2]

Academic career

After receiving his degree, Kellner taught in various schools until a scholarship sent him to London in 1887 to study at the British Museum. He returned to the University of Vienna in 1890 to lecture in English literature. In 1904 he became a professor of English at the University of Czernowitz, a post he held until 1914 when he fled Czernowitz at the beginning of World War I. After the war, Kellner served as a translator in the office of the President of the Austrian Republic and lectured at the Technical University of Vienna.[3]

During Kellner's lifetime, his work met with mixed sentiments among native English speakers. When Geschichte der Nordamerikanischen Literatur (American Literature) was translated into English by Julia Franklin in 1915, reviewer Ellen Fitz Gerald found many flaws in Kellner's judgments, notably his statement, "We look in vain...for an epic that glorifies...great [American] deeds."[4] In reviewing Restoring Shakespeare, John W. Draper wrote in 1926 that although Kellner's emendations were novel and ingenious, they were unnecessary.[5]

When philologist Jakob Schipper retired from the University of Vienna in 1913, Kellner was considered to be his successor, but the university left the post vacant rather than accept Kellner, an active proponent of Zionism.[2]

Zionism

In 1896 Kellner became a friend and assistant to Theodore Herzl, a political activist and founder of the World Zionist Organization. Kellner also became active in the Jüdischnationale Partei or Jewish National Party. He contributed to Herzl's weekly publication, Die Welt,[6] under the name, Leo Rafael.[3]

Kellner published a two-volume collection of Herzl's writings in 1908, Theodor Herzl's Zionistische Schriften, and in 1920 he published Theodor Herzl's Lehrjahre.

See also

Leon Kellner at the German Wikipedia

References

  1. ↑ Arnold, Hannah (1977). "Kellner, Leon (Pseudonym Leo Raphaels)". Deutche Biographie Vol. 11. Archived from the original on May 10, 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Kastovsky (ed.), Dieter (1991). Historical English Syntax. Topics in English Linguistics. 2. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. Introduction. ISBN 9783110863314.
  3. 1 2 Kressel, Getzel. "Kellner, Leon". Jewish Virtual Library. Archived from the original on April 18, 2012. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  4. ↑ Fitz Gerald, Ellen (November 1915). "Review: A German View of American Letters". The English Journal. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English. 4 (9): 618–619. JSTOR 801123.
  5. ↑ Draper, John W. (October 1926). "Restoring Shakespeare, a Critical Analysis of the Misreadings in Shakespeare's Works by Leon Kellner". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. 25 (4): 578–585. JSTOR 27702996.
  6. ↑ Founded in 1897 and not affiliated with Die Welt, a German daily founded in 1946.

Selected works

Author

Editor

Further reading

External links

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