The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Simrock, Karl Joseph

SIMROCK, zĭm'rŏk, Karl Joseph, German poet: b. Bonn, Germany, 28 Aug. 1802; d. there, 18 July 1876. He studied at the university of his native city and at Berlin, and in 1826 entered the Prussian civil service, which he was later compelled to leave on account of a revolutionary poem which he had written. His chief claim to fame is founded on his classic modern rendering of the ‘Nibelungenlied’ (1827) which has gone through over half a hundred editions. He translated Shakespeare's poems and some of his plays, and published (with Echtermeyer and Henschel) ‘Quellen des Shakspere’ (1831). He also published ‘Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie’ (1853-55); ‘Deutsche Volksbücher’ (1839-67); ‘Heldenbuch’ (1843-49), illustrative of the heroic traditions of the Teutonic race and his own ‘Poems’ (1844). In 1850 he was appointed professor of old German language and literature at Bonn, a post which he held till his death. Consult Hocker, N., ‘Karl Simrock sein Leben und seine Werke’ (Leipzig 1877) and Schröder, E., (in ‘Allgemeine deutsche Biographie’).