Joseph Victor von Scheffel was a German poet and novelist.
Background
He was born at Karlsruhe on the 16th of February, 1826. 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.
Education
Young Scheffel was educated at the lyceum at Karlsruhe and afterwards (1843–1847) at the universities of Munich, Heidelberg and Berlin.
After passing the state examination for admission to the judicial service, he graduated Doctor juris.
Career
Joseph Victor von Scheffel began a career in the Baden civil service in 1848. He soon obtained a leave of absence to travel and study painting in Italy, and in 1853 he resigned his legal post and turned to literature. He served as librarian to Prince Fürstenberg at Donaueschingen from 1857 to 1859. In 1865 he was given the title of privy councillor, and in 1876 he was given a patent of nobility.
Scheffel’s popularity was based on genuine talent as a fluent poet and on his romantic, nationalistic stance that rejected the strictures of contemporary realism in favour of a rosy view of Germany’s ancient glories. His meticulously researched book Ekkehard, set at the 10th-century monastery of St. Gall, was one of the most popular German novels of the century. His other works include Hugideo (1884), a historical novel set in the 5th century; Frau Aventiure (1863; “Lady Adventure”), a book of verse; and Gaudeamus! (1868), a collection of student songs. Scheffel’s writings eventually fell out of favour with the critics, who viewed them as cloying and trivial.
Connections
He married in 1864 Caroline von Malzen.