Karl Witte.

Johann Heinrich Friedrich Karl Witte (July 1, 1800 in Lochau (now part of Schkopau) – March 6, 1883 in Halle) was a German jurist and scholar of Dante Alighieri.

Biography

Karl Witte was the son of pastor Karl Heinrich Gottfried Witte (1767–1845) who encouraged a fairly intense program of learning. When Karl Witte was nine, he spoke German, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek, and on April 10, 1814, at the age of 13, he became a doctor of philosophy at the University of Giessen in Germany.[1] As a result, Witte was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "youngest doctorate", a record that still stands; however, The Guinness Book of World Records lists his age as 12.[2]

Witte was the subject of a book written by his father: The Education of Karl Witte: Or, The Training of the Child. This book attracted criticism and soon fell into oblivion in Germany.

He achieved his reputation as a Dante scholar in 1823 with his essay "The Art of Misunderstanding Dante".[3]

References

  1. ↑ Witte, Karl Heinrich Gottfried (1914). Bruce, H. Addington (ed.). The Education of Karl Witte: Or, The Training of the Child. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. pp. xvii, 312. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
  2. ↑ Wolf, Buck (October 23, 2009). "10 Unbreakable Guinness Records". AOL News. Archived from the original on September 1, 2013. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
  3. ↑ Riordan, Roger (March 11, 1899). "Four Recent Books: Verse by Thomas Hardy, Essays on Dante, The Chinese Classics, and a Bismarck Book" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
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