Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/61

Rh R U C ft U D 49 RUCKERT, FRIEDRICH (1788-1866), an eminent German poet, was born at Schweinfurt on the 16th May 1788. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native place and at the universities of Wiirzburg and Heidelberg, where he studied law and philology. Having taken hi degree, he went to the university of Jena as a " privat- docent " ; but this position he soon abandoned. For some time he worked in connexion with the Morgenblatt at Stuttgart. Nearly the whole of the year 1818 he spent in Rome, where he devoted himself to study, especially to the study of the popular poetry of Italy ; and afterward he lived for several years at Coburg. He was appointed a professor of Oriental languages at the university of Erlangen in 1826, and in 1841 he was called to a similar position in Berlin, where he was also made a privy councillor. In 1849 he resigned his professorship at Berlin, and went to live on his estate near Coburg. He died on the 31st January 1866. When Rlickert began his literary career, Germany was engaged in her life-and-death struggle with Napoleon ; and in his first volume, Deutsche Gedichte, published in 1814 under the name of Freimund Raimar, he gave vigorous expression to the prevailing sentiment of his countrymen. In 1816 appeared Napoleon, eine politische Komodie in drei Stucken, and in 1817 the Kranz der Zeit. He issued a collection of poems, Oestliche Rosen, in 1822 ; and in 1834-38 his Gesammelte Gedichte were published in six volumes, a selection from which has passed through many editions. Riickert, who was master of thirty lan- guages, made his mark chiefly as a translator of Oriental poetry, and as a writer of poems conceived in the spirit of Oriental masters. Much attention was attracted by Die Verwandlungen des Abu Seid, a translation of Hariri's Makamen (1826), Nal und Damajanti, an Indian tale (1828), Amrilkais, der Dichter und Kdnig (1843), and Hamasa, oder die dltesten arabischen Volkslieder (1846). Among his original poems dealing with Oriental subjects are MorgenldndiscJie Sagen und Geschichten (1837), Erbau- liches und Beschauliches aus dem Morgenland (1836-38), Rostem und Suhrab, eine Heldengeschichte (1838), and Brahmanische Erzdhlungen (1839). The most elaborate of his works is Die Weisheit des Brahmanen, published in six volumes in 1836-39. In 1843-45 he issued several dramas, all of which are greatly inferior to the work to which he owes his distinctive place in German literature. At the time of the Danish war in 1864 he wrote Ein Dutzend Kampf-Lieder fur Schleswig-Holstein, which, al- though published anonymously, produced a considerable impression. After his death many poetical translations and original poems were found among his papers, and several collections of them were published. Riickert lacked the simple and natural feeling which is character- istic of all the greatest lyrical poets of Germany. But he had a certain splendour of imagination which made Oriental poetry congenial to him, and he has seldom been surpassed in his power of giving rhythmic expression to ideas on the conduct of life. As a master of poetical style he ranks with German writers of the highest class. There are hardly any lyrical forms which are not represented among his works, and in all of them, the simplest and the most complex, he wrote with equal ease and grace. A complete edition of Eiickert's poetical works appeared in Frankfort in 1868-69. See Fortlage, Riickert und seine Werke (1867) ; Beyer, Friedrich Riickert, ein biographisches Denkmal (1868) ; Neue Mittheilungen ilber Ruckert (1873) ; and Nachgelassene Gedichte Riickerts und neue Beitrage zu dessen I/eben und Schriften (1877) ; Boxberger, Ruckert- Studien (1878). RUDAGt (d. 954). Hakim Mohammed Farid-eddfn 'Abdallah, the first great genius of modern Persia, was born in Rudag, a village in Transoxiana, about 870-900, totally blind, as most of his biographers assert, although the fine distinction of colours and the minute description of the various tints and shades of flowers in his poems flatly contradict the customary legend of the " blind min- strel." In his eighth year he knew the whole Koran by heart and had begun to write verses. He had besides a wonderful voice which enraptured all hearers, and he played in a masterly way on the lute. The fame of these accom- plishments at last reached the ear of the Samanid Nasr II. bin Ahmad, the ruler of Khorasan and Transoxiana (913- 942), who drew the poet to his court and distinguished him by his personal favour. Rudagi became his daily companion, rose to the highest honours, and grew rich in worldly wealth. He received so many costly presents that he could allow himself the extravagance of keeping two hundred pages, and that four hundred camels were neces- sary to carry all his property. In spite of various pre- decessors he well deserves the title of " father of Persian literature," since he was the first who impressed upon every form of epic, lyric, and didactic poetry its peculiar stamp and its individual character. He is also said to have been the founder of the " dfwan," that is, the typical form of the complete collection of a poet's lyrical compositions in a more or less alphabetical order which prevails to the present day among all Mohammedan writers. His poems filled, according to all statements, one hundred volumes and consisted of one million three hundred thousand verses ; but of this there remain only fifty-two kasidas, ghazals, and ruba'is ; of his epic masterpieces we have nothing beyond a few stray lines found here and there as illus- trations of ancient Persian words and phrases in native dictionaries. But the most serious loss is that of his translation of Ibn Mukaffa's Arabic version of the old Indian fable book Kalilah and Dimnah, which he put into Persian verse at the request of his royal patron, and for which he received the handsome reward of 40,000 dirhems. In his kasidas, which are all devoted to the praise of his sovereign and friend, Rudagi has left us unequalled models of a refined and delicate taste, very different from the often bombastic compositions of later Persian encomiasts, and these alone would entitle him to a foremost rank among the poets of his country ; but his renown is considerably enhanced by his odes and epi- grams. Those of a didactic tendency express in well- measured lines a sort of Epicurean philosophy in the loftiest sense of the word on human life and human happiness; more charming still are the purely lyrical pieces, sweet and fascinating songs, which glorify the two everlast- ing delights of glowing hearts and cheerful minds love and wine. Rudagi survived his royal friend, and died long after the splendid days of Nasr's patronage, the time of wealth and luxury, had passed away poor and forgotten by the world, as one of his poems, a beautiful elegy, seems to indicate in 954. A complete edition of all the extant poems of Rudagi, in Persian text and metrical German translation, together with a biographi- cal account, based on forty-six Persian MSS., is found in Dr Ethe's " Rudagi der Samanidendichter ".(Gottingcr Nachrichtcn, 1873, pp. 663-742). RUDD, or RED-EYE (Leuciscus erythrophthalmus), a fish of the family of Carps, generally spread over Europe, north and south of the Alps, also found in Asia Minor, and extremely common in suitable localities, viz., still and deep waters with muddy bottom. When adult, it is readily recognized by its deep, short body, golden-coppery tint of the whole surface, red eyes, and scarlet lower fins ;
 * he young are often confounded with those of the roach,

aut the pharyngeal teeth of the rudd stand in a double row, and not in 'a single one, as in the roach ; also the first dorsal rays are inserted distinctly behind the vertical ine from the root of the ventral fin. The anal rays are 'rom thirteen to fifteen in number, and the scales in the ateral line from thirty-nine to forty-two. The rudd is a XXI. 7