Biography
Adolph Freiherr von Knigge
Baron Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Knigge was born to an impoverished noble family on the Bredenbek estate near Hanover on October 16, 1752.
Adolph Freiherr von Knigge was educated by a courtier. From 1769 to 1772 he studied law at the Georgia-Augusta University in Göttingen, among others with the brothers Johann Adolf Schlegel and Johann August Schlegel. From 1772, he worked as a court junior and assessor of the war and domain treasury in Kassel. There he joined the lodge "Zum gekrönten Löwen" in 1773. On the recommendation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was able to take up a position as a Weimar chamberlain in Hanau from 1777 and then went to Frankfurt/M. Adolph Freiherr von Knigge revealed his Enlightenment thinking not only in literature, but also in his membership of the radical Enlightenment Illuminati Order from 1780 to 1784.
In this context he stood up for human rights and thereby attracted the criticism and rejection of his aristocratic peers. He lost his inherited family property and had to provide for his own living like a commoner. In 1790 he moved to Bremen and - although already ill - took up a position as head of the government of Brunswick-Lüneburg and as head of the cathedral school. This employment secured his livelihood. Knigge became a political writer of the Enlightenment, who was committed in his works to the emancipation of bourgeois society from absolutism. His best-known work became the two-volume On the Manners of Men, published in 1788.
It established his literary fame in a dubious way, for the work was misjudged. It was considered in reception as a book for learning etiquette, but was written as an emancipatory title on social teaching for practice. Despite the miscarriage of his literary intentions and his enlightenment appeal in this, his most famous work, Knigge was a much-feared writer among his absolutist opponents. This may seem a contradiction, especially since Knigge himself belonged to the nobility. But he set himself apart from them early on, even though he always strove to reclaim his possessions. He referred to his noble title "Freiherr" ironically as "free Herr Knigge".
In his professional life, too, he aspired to be a free writer. For example, he wrote reviews for the "Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek," wrote dramas such as "Theaterstücke" (1779/1780) or the "Dramaturgische Blätter" (1788/1789), and numerous light novels in the spirit of the Enlightenment - some of them with utopian titles. Between 1781 and 1783, his four-volume autobiography "The Novel of My Life" was published. He read the philosophical writings of Thomas Hobbes and translated Rousseau's "Confessions." In the course of his own practical moral philosophy, he wrote the work "Six Sermons against Despotism, Stupidity, Superstition, Injustice, Infidelity, and Idleness" (1783) to combat the aforementioned vices.
Time and again, Knigge used pseudonyms such as Josephus Aloisius Maier, J.C. Meywerk, or Melchior Spießglas in his writing activities. Around the time of 1785, Knigge joined the "German Union". The French Revolution brought a turning point in his literary work. Knigge turned to biting political satire, as evidenced by his work titles such as "Benjamin Noldmann`s Geschichte der Aufklärung in Abyssinien" (1791), "Des seligen Hernn Ethatsraths Samuel Conrad von Schafskopf hinterlassene Papiere" (1792) or "Josephs von Wurmbrand politisches Glaubensbekenntniß" (1792). In 1792, the novel "Die Reise nach Braunschweig" (The Journey to Brunswick) appeared, modeled after Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson as a sensitive work.
In his "Journey to Fritzlar in Summer," Knigge satirically traces the journey of the Swiss pastor Johann Caspar Lavater to Copenhagen for ghost-seeing and dream interpretation. His other works include "Allgemeines System für das Volk zur Grundlage aller Erkenntnisse für Menschen aus allen Nationen, Ständen und Religionen" (1778), "Geschichte Peter Clausens" (1783 - 1785), "Geschichte des armen Herrn von Mildenburg" (1789 - 1790), "Das Zauberschloß oder Geschichte des Grafen Tunger" (1791), "Ueber Schriftsteller und Schriftstellerei" (1793), "Ueber Eigennutz und Undankank" (1796) or "Schriften" (1804 - 1806).
Adolph Freiherr von Knigge died in Bremen on May 6, 1796.
Adolph Freiherr von Knigge was educated by a courtier. From 1769 to 1772 he studied law at the Georgia-Augusta University in Göttingen, among others with the brothers Johann Adolf Schlegel and Johann August Schlegel. From 1772, he worked as a court junior and assessor of the war and domain treasury in Kassel. There he joined the lodge "Zum gekrönten Löwen" in 1773. On the recommendation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was able to take up a position as a Weimar chamberlain in Hanau from 1777 and then went to Frankfurt/M. Adolph Freiherr von Knigge revealed his Enlightenment thinking not only in literature, but also in his membership of the radical Enlightenment Illuminati Order from 1780 to 1784.
In this context he stood up for human rights and thereby attracted the criticism and rejection of his aristocratic peers. He lost his inherited family property and had to provide for his own living like a commoner. In 1790 he moved to Bremen and - although already ill - took up a position as head of the government of Brunswick-Lüneburg and as head of the cathedral school. This employment secured his livelihood. Knigge became a political writer of the Enlightenment, who was committed in his works to the emancipation of bourgeois society from absolutism. His best-known work became the two-volume On the Manners of Men, published in 1788.
It established his literary fame in a dubious way, for the work was misjudged. It was considered in reception as a book for learning etiquette, but was written as an emancipatory title on social teaching for practice. Despite the miscarriage of his literary intentions and his enlightenment appeal in this, his most famous work, Knigge was a much-feared writer among his absolutist opponents. This may seem a contradiction, especially since Knigge himself belonged to the nobility. But he set himself apart from them early on, even though he always strove to reclaim his possessions. He referred to his noble title "Freiherr" ironically as "free Herr Knigge".
In his professional life, too, he aspired to be a free writer. For example, he wrote reviews for the "Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek," wrote dramas such as "Theaterstücke" (1779/1780) or the "Dramaturgische Blätter" (1788/1789), and numerous light novels in the spirit of the Enlightenment - some of them with utopian titles. Between 1781 and 1783, his four-volume autobiography "The Novel of My Life" was published. He read the philosophical writings of Thomas Hobbes and translated Rousseau's "Confessions." In the course of his own practical moral philosophy, he wrote the work "Six Sermons against Despotism, Stupidity, Superstition, Injustice, Infidelity, and Idleness" (1783) to combat the aforementioned vices.
Time and again, Knigge used pseudonyms such as Josephus Aloisius Maier, J.C. Meywerk, or Melchior Spießglas in his writing activities. Around the time of 1785, Knigge joined the "German Union". The French Revolution brought a turning point in his literary work. Knigge turned to biting political satire, as evidenced by his work titles such as "Benjamin Noldmann`s Geschichte der Aufklärung in Abyssinien" (1791), "Des seligen Hernn Ethatsraths Samuel Conrad von Schafskopf hinterlassene Papiere" (1792) or "Josephs von Wurmbrand politisches Glaubensbekenntniß" (1792). In 1792, the novel "Die Reise nach Braunschweig" (The Journey to Brunswick) appeared, modeled after Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson as a sensitive work.
In his "Journey to Fritzlar in Summer," Knigge satirically traces the journey of the Swiss pastor Johann Caspar Lavater to Copenhagen for ghost-seeing and dream interpretation. His other works include "Allgemeines System für das Volk zur Grundlage aller Erkenntnisse für Menschen aus allen Nationen, Ständen und Religionen" (1778), "Geschichte Peter Clausens" (1783 - 1785), "Geschichte des armen Herrn von Mildenburg" (1789 - 1790), "Das Zauberschloß oder Geschichte des Grafen Tunger" (1791), "Ueber Schriftsteller und Schriftstellerei" (1793), "Ueber Eigennutz und Undankank" (1796) or "Schriften" (1804 - 1806).
Adolph Freiherr von Knigge died in Bremen on May 6, 1796.