Katalog der Äthiopica, Arabica, Turcica, Hebraica und Persica
Der orientalistische Nachlass Friedrich Rückerts in der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster
Katalog der Äthiopica, Arabica, Turcica, Hebraica und Persica
edited by Anke Osigus
Schriften der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster, 23, ISSN 0934-3288
Harald Fischer Verlag, Erlangen
cloth-bound, sewn, 469 pages, 2009
ISBN 978-3-89131-514-9
EUR 98.– (incl. VAT)
Friedrich Rückerts Orientalia in the University and State Library of Münster
Friedrich Rückert the poet, a selection of whose «Kindertodtenlieder» were set to music by Gustav Mahler in 1911, involved himself, as a scholar and translator, with more than forty languages. His main interest as a philologist and translator was the poetry of the classical oriental literary languages: Indian, Arabic, and Persian. Through his translations, e.g. of the Quran, he influenced the transmission and reception of oriental literature in Germany up till the present.
Despite numerous editions, Rückerts translations from these languages are still a long way from being completely published. His scholarly and poetic papers therefore have a special significance. A large part of the orientalia have been in the possession of the University and State Library of Münster since 1922.
Catalog of the Ethiopica, Arabica, Turkica, Hebraica, and Persica
The catalog provides a detailed list of the, in the narrow sense of the word, orientalia holdings with Rückerts works on Ethiopian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebraic and Persian language and literature. The material includes 109 documents, 102 in his own hand, with about 6350 pages of text that reflect more than forty years of uninterrupted research. Language studies and lecture notes can be found next to outlines for reviews and brilliant poetical translations.
The editor begins with an overview of the current state of the research on the holdings (which are distributed in five capsules) as well as their provenance history and their characteristic specialities. This is followed by the registration of the separate manuscripts in a unified categorisation that provides information about all of the important characteristics of the orientalia in Münster.
Special attention is paid to the detailed registration of the Arabic holdings. These represent, with 64 documents, not only the most extensive section of the papers but also contain the largest number of the translations that are worthy of publication but which have not been up till now. Each individual poem translation is recorded by naming the incipit, the author, the source used, possible duplicates and publications. The volume closes with an extensive bibliography.