Joseph Victor von Scheffel (16 February 1826 – 9 April 1886) was a German poet and novelist. His novel Ekkehard (1855) became one of the most popular German novels in the 19th century.
Biography
He was born at Karlsruhe. His father, a retired major in the Baden army, was a civil engineer and member of the commission for regulating the course of the Rhine; his mother, née Josephine Krederer, the daughter of a prosperous tradesman at Oberndorf am Neckar, was a woman of great intellectual powers and of a romantic disposition. Young Scheffel was educated at the lyceum at Karlsruhe and afterwards (1843–1847) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Heidelberg University, and the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin.
After passing the state examination for admission to the judicial service, he graduated as Doctor juris and for four years (1848–1852) held an official position at the town of Säckingen. Here he wrote his epic poem Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (The Trumpeter of Säckingen) (1853), a romantic and humorous tale which immediately gained extraordinary popularity. It reached more than 250 editions and was made into an opera by Viktor Nessler in 1884. Scheffel next undertook a journey to Italy.
Returning home in 1853 he found his parents more than ever anxious that he should continue his legal career. But in 1854, defective eyesight incapacitated him; he quit the government service and took up his residence at Heidelberg, with the intention of preparing himself for a post on the teaching staff of the university. His studies were, however, interrupted by eye disease, and in search of health he travelled to Switzerland and took up residence at Lake Constance, and elaborated the plan of his famous historical romance Ekkehard (1855); (Eng. translation by Sofie Delffs, Leipzig, 1872). Part of this work was later used by Max Bruch as the libretto for his cantata The Lay of the Norsemen. The first ideas for this work he got from the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Ekkehard was almost as popular than the Trompeter von Säkkingen. In 1901, it reached the 179th edition.
