The New International Encyclopædia/Hoffmann, August Heinrich

HOFFMANN, hṓf'mȧn, , called, fṓn fäl'ẽrs-lắ'ben (1798-1874). A German poet, philologist, and literary historian, born at Fallersleben. He was educated at Göttingen and Bonn, and from 1823 to 1838 was librarian at the University of Breslau, where he was also professor from 1830 till his dismissal (1842) for his Unpolitische Lieder (1841-42). He was restored to his rights as a Prussian citizen in 1848, having passed the intervening years in Mecklenburg. He married in 1849 and afterwards lived at Bingerbrück, Neuwied, and Weimar, where he was an editor of the Weimarisches Jahrbuch. From 1860 till his death he was librarian of the Duke of Ratibor. Popular at first as a liberal political poet, he is cherished still for the ease, simplicity, and grace of songs of common life, for many of which he also composed melodies, Hoffmann was a diligent editor of early German classics (Reincke Vos, Monumenta Elnonensia, Theophilus), made valuable contributions to philology now of antiquarian interest only, and to literary history. In 1868-70 Hoffmann published Mein Leben, an autobiography in six volumes. Hoffmann's Works are still uncollected, but the Poems (incomplete) have been often reëdited. His Briefe an Ferdinand Wolf were published in 1874. There is a Life by Wagner (Vienna and Dresden, 1869). Consult also Kreyenberg, in Preussische Jahrbücher (Berlin, 1891).