A Schopenhauer Timeline

compiled primarily from: Safranski, Rudiger. Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. Trans. Ewald Osers. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990.

and: Schopenhauer, Arthur. Philosophical Writings. Wolfgang Schirmacher, ed. New York: Continuum Publishing, 1994.

A SCHOPENHAUER TIMELINE

1788: 22 February: Arthur Schopenhauer is born in Danzig, the son of the patrician merchant Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer and his wife Johanna, née Trosiener.
1793: Because of the independant city's occupation by the Prussians the family moves to Hamburg.
1797: Birth of his sister, Adele.
July: Arthur travels to Paris and Le Havre, and stays in Le Havre for two wonderful years with the French family of Grégoire de Blésimaire. Friendship with Anthime, the son of the family.
1799: August: Arthur returns to Hamburg where he attends Runge's private school (until 1803).
1803: March: Promised a four-month tour of Europe (Holland, England, France, Switzerland, Austria) with his parents, Arthur decides against a career as scholar in favor of trading as a merchant.
3 May: Journey Begins.
1804: 25 August: Journey ends.
September: Apprenticed to merchany Kabrun in Danzig (until December).
1805-7: Apprenticed to the merchant Jenisch in Hamburg.
1805: 20 April: Suicide (alleged) of his father.
1806: September: Having wound up the family buisness his mother, with Adele, moves to Weimar.
October: Beginning of the friendship between Johanna Schopenhauer and Goethe. Johanna establishes her tea parties.
1807: May: Arthur terminates his apprenticeship and leaves Hamburg to acquire university entrance qualification at the Gotha Gymnasium.
Because of a poetic lampoon he has to leave the school. He moves to Weimar but does not live at his mother's house. Private tuition. Falls in love with Karoline Jagemann.
1809: Concludes his school studies. Has his paternal inheritence paid out to him, but his mother administers it.
9 October: Starts his studies in Göttingen.
1809-11: Studies at Göttingen University: natural sciences, Plato, Kant.
1811: Easter: Visits Weimar. Schopenhauer to Wieland: "Life is a sorry affair, I have resolved to spend it reflecting on it."
Autumn: Berlin University.
1811-13: Studies at Berlin University. Attends lectures by Johann Fichte, Wolf, and Friedrich Schleiermacher.
1813: 2 May: Scopenhauer flees from Berlin because of the war. Short stay in Weimar. Quarrels with his mother. Withdraws to nearby Rudolstadt.
July-November: Writes his dissertation On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
5 November: Returns to his mother's house.
Winter: Has conversations with Goethe on color theory.
1814: April: Culmination of arguments between Schopenhauer, his mother and her friend Gerstenbergk.
May: Final break with his mother, a well-known novelist. Schopenhauer leaves Weimar.
1814-18: Lives in Dresden.
1815: On Seeing and Colors.
Draft and execution of the first version of his principal work, The World as Will and Representation.
1818: March: Completes the first version of his principal work, The World as Will and Representation (published 1819). Brockhaus to be the publisher.
Autumn: Starts his Italian journey (Florence. Rome, Naples, Venice).
1819: January: Publication of The World as Will and Representation.
Spring: Birth of his illegitimate daughter. She is dead by late summer.
Summer: Family financial crisis owing to the collapse of the Danzig banking house of Muhl. Schopenhauer therefore returns to Germany. New tensions between him and his mother. Quarrels also with his sister Adele.
25 August: Back in Dresden.
Schopenhauer applies for a lectureship at Berlin University and, with the help of Hegel, is accepted.
1820: 29 March: Start of lecture with very low student attendance (attempts to give lectures without success in the following years).
1821: Falls in love with the singer Caroline Medon. Beginning of the "Marquet affair" (physical assault against a seamstress and suit for damages).
1822: 22 May: Second Italian Journey (Milan, Florence, Venice).
1823: May: Return. Arrival in Munich. Serious illness, depression (his philosophy is ignored).
1824: Stays at Bad Gastein, in Mannheim and in Dresden.
1825: April: Back to Berlin. Once more, but unsuccessfully, attempts to give lectures. Tries to establish himself as a translator, also unsuccessfully.
1831: August: Flees from Berlin because of a cholera epidemic that causes Hegel's death. Moves to Frankfurt-am-Main.
1832-3: Lives in Mannheim (July 1832-June 1833).
1833: 6 July: Settles in Frankfurt-am-Main for the next twenty-eight years, until the end of his life.
1835: On the Will in Nature.
1838: Death of his mother.
1839: Competition essay 'On the Freedom of Human Will', awarded first prize.
1840: Competition essay 'On the Foundations of Morality', not awarded a prize.
1841: The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, Treated in Two Academic Prize Essays.
1844: The World as Will and Representation: second edition, amplified by a volume.
1849: Death of Adele.
1851: Parerga and Paralipomena.
1853: Beginning of Schopenhauer's fame.
1859: Third edition of The World as Will and Representation.
1860: 21 September: Death of Arthur Schopenhauer in Frankfurt.

This page hosted by Geopages. Get your own Free Home Page