Wilhelm Scherer

Wilhelm Scherer (26 April 1841 – 6 August 1886) was a German philologist and historian of literature. He was known as a positivist because he based much of his work on "hypotheses on detailed historical research, and rooted every literary phenomenon in 'objective' historical or philological facts". His positivism is different due to his involvement with his nationalist goals. His major contribution to the movement was his speculation that culture cycled in a six-hundred-year period.

Life

Scherer was born in Schönborn, Austrian Empire (present-day Göllersdorf, Lower Austria, Austria). He was educated at the academic gymnasium in Vienna and afterwards at the University of Vienna, where he was a favorite pupil of the distinguished Germanist, Karl Müllenhoff (1818–1884). Having taken the degree of doctor philosophiae, he became privatdozent for German language and literature in 1864.¹

In 1868 he was named a full professor at Vienna, and in 1872 received a call in a like capacity to the University of Strasbourg, and in 1877 to the University of Berlin, where in 1884 he was made a member of the Academy of Sciences. He died in Berlin, German Empire at the age of 45.¹

Works

Scherer's literary activity falls into three categories: in Vienna was the philologist, at Strasbourg the professor of literature and Berlin the author.¹