August Vezin

August Heinrich Wilhelm Vezin^[1] (* 19 January 1879 in Münster; † 24 June 1963 in Ahlen) was a German secondary school teacher and philologist.

Life

Vezin was born in Münster, Germany, the son of Louis Vezin, a mechanical engineer, and his wife Charlotte Göcke.^[1]

Vezin took his Abitur at the Josephinum in Hildesheim and studied philosophy, German, history and art history in Münster, Graz, Vienna, Heidelberg and Leipzig. In Tübingen he received his doctorate with a dissertation on Eumenes of Kardia.^[2]

After working briefly as an assistant teacher at the grammar school in Coesfeld, he became a teacher at the Reform Realgymnasium in Hechingen in 1905. He took part in the First World War as a war volunteer from 1914 to 1918. From 1927 he worked in Siegburg and later with the title of professor until his retirement at the Beethoven-Gymnasium Bonn.

Since his 1926 translation (tercets with almost entirely feminine rhymes) of the Divine Comedy with explanatory notes and a second bilingual edition in 1956, Vezin has been considered a recognized Dante scholar.^[3]

He was a member of the Catholic student fraternities VKDSt Saxonia Münster, KDStV Burgundia (Leipzig) Düsseldorf, AV Guestfalia Tübingen and KaV Norica Vienna.^[4] He published an extensive historical account of the Guestfalia in Tübingen.

Honors

• In the First World War he was awarded the Iron Cross.
• In 1956 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st class.

Fonts

• Eumenes of Kardia. A contribution to the history of the Diadochian period. Aschendorff, Münster 1907 (Diss., Phil. Fak., Tübingen 1907).
• The joyful message of our Lord. Herder, Freiburg 1915.
• The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Herder, Freiburg 1938 (new edition of Die Freudenbotschaft unseres Herrn; last 4th improved edition 1958).
• Dante. His world and time, his life and work. Laumann, Dülmen 1949.^[5]
• 100 Years of Tübingen Guestfalia. Müller, Cologne 1965.

Translations and adaptations

• Charles Dickens: The Christmas of Old Scrooge. Aschendorff, Münster 1912. Again 1922.
• (Ed.): Fritz Reuter: Ut mine Stromtid. Aschendorff, Münster 1919.
• Dante Alighieri: The divine comedy. Translated and explained. J. Kösel & F. Pustet, Munich 1926.^[6][7]
  • Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy. Italian and German. Herder, Freiburg, Rome 1956. Last 1989.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Arcadian Fair Evangeline. Callwey, Munich 1929, reprinted as: Evangeline. Translated into German blank verse. Meister, Heidelberg 1947.
• Vergil: Aeneid. Latin and German. Aschendorff, Münster 1952. 7th edition 2006, ISBN 978-3-402-02618-2.

Literature

• Hans Rheinfelder: August Vezin 1879-1963. in Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch, vol. 41/42, 2014, pp. 223-229. doi:10.1515/dante-1964-0111
• Vezin, August, in: Friedhelm Golücke: Verfasserlexikon zur Studenten- und Hochschulgeschichte. SH-Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89498-130-X. S. 338–339.

Web links

• Literature by August Vezin in the catalogue of the German National Library
• August Vezin in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
• Literature by and about August Vezin in the WorldCat bibliographic database
• Entry for August Vezin in Kalliope
• Entry about Vezin, August in the Index of German Biography

Individual references

1. ↑ ^{a b} Baptism entry of 1879 in the church book of St. Lamberti, MünsterMatricula Online. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
2. ↑ Review, Georges Radet A. Vezin, Eumenes of Kardia : a contribution to the history of the Diadochic period, 1907. In: Revue des études anciennes, vol. 11, 1909, no. 1, pp. 86-87.
3. ↑ Hans Rheinfelder: August Vezin 1879-1963. in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch, vol. 41/42, 2014, pp. 223-229.
4. ↑ Complete list of the CV 1961, p. 420.
5. ↑ Review by Friedrich Schneider in Theologische Literaturzeitung, Vol. 76, 1951, H. 2, p. 102.
6. ↑ Review by Börries von Münchhausen in Dante-Jahrbuch, vol. 10, 1928, p. 205.
7. ↑ Review by Friedrich Schneider in Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 135, 1927, H. 2, p. 313.