The New International Encyclopædia/Körner, Christian Gottfried

KÖRNER, kẽr′nẽr, Christian Gottfried (1756-1831). A German author and friend of Schiller, born at Leipzig. He studied law at Göttingen and Leipzig, and in 1783 became chief councilor of the consistory at Dresden; was appointed to the office of judge in the Court of Appeals in 1790, and in 1811, after thirteen years as Referendar in the Privy Council, returned to the appellate court. His home was a gathering-place for the literary men of the time. He corresponded with Goethe, and was very intimate with Schiller, who lived with him much of the time between 1785 and 1787. During the Russian occupation of Leipzig he was Russian Government counselor, and then entered the Prussian service (1815) at Berlin, where he was State councilor and later Privy Councilor in the new Ministry of Education. His best-known work was the anonymous Aesthetische Ansichten (1808); but of greater importance is Schillers Briefwechsel mit Körner (ed. by Goedeke, Leipzig, 1874; by Geiger, Stuttgart, 1895-96) . He also prepared the first collected edition of Schiller's works (1812-15), and Poetischer Nachlass Theodor Körners (1815). His collected works are edited by Stern (Leipzig, 1881). Consult Jonas, Körner, biographische Nachrichten über ihn und sein Haus (Berlin, 1882).