LACHMANN, KARL KONRAD FRIEDRICH WIL HELM (1793-1851), German philologist and critic, was born at Brunswick on March 4, 1793, and died on March 13, 1851. In 1815 he joined the Prussian army as a volunteer, and marched to Paris. His life was spent in the study of philology, specially Old and Middle High German, and from 1825 he was professor of philology at Berlin.
Lachmann in his able "Habilitationsschrift" Ober die ur spriingliche Gestalt des Gedichts der Nibelunge Not (1816), and still more in his review of Hagen's Nibelungen and Benecke's Bonerius, contributed in 1817 to the Jen aische Literaturzeitung, had already laid down the rules of textual criticism and eluci dated the phonetic and metrical principles of Middle High Ger man in a manner which marked a distinct advance in that branch of investigation. The rigidly scientific character of his method becomes increasingly apparent in the Auswahl aus den hock deutschen Dichtern des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (1820), in the edition of Hartmann's Iwein (1827), in those of Walther von der Vogelweide (1827) and Wolfram von Eschenbach (1833), in the papers "Ober das Hildebrandslied," "Ober althochdeutsche Be tonung und Verskunst," "Ober den Eingang des Parzivals," and "Ober drei Bruchstiicke niederrheinischer Gedichte" published in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, and in Der Nibelunge Not und die Klage (1826, irth ed., 1892), which was followed by a critical commentary in 1836.
Lachmann's Betrachtungen ober Homers Ilias, first published in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy in 1837 and 1841, in which he sought to show that the Iliad consists of 16 independent "lays" variously enlarged and interpolated, have had considerable influence on modern Homeric criticism (see HOMER), although his views are no longer accepted. His smaller edition of the New Testament appeared in 1831, 3rd ed. 1846; the larger, in two vol umes, 1842-50. Besides Propertius (1816), Lachmann edited Catullus (1829) ; Tibullus (1829); Genesius (1834); Terentianus Maurus (1836); Babrius (1845); Avian/us (1845); Gaius (1841– ; the Agrimensores Romani (1848-52) ; Lucilius (edited after his death by Vahlen, 1876) ; and Lucretius (1850). The last, which was the main occupation of the closing years of his life, from 1845, was perhaps his greatest achievement, and has been characterized by Munro as "a work which will be a landmark for scholars as long as the Latin language continues to be studied." Lachmann also translated Macbeth (1829).
See M. Hertz, Karl Lachmann, eine Biographie 0850, where a full list of Lachmann's works is given; F. Leo, Rede zur Sacularfeier K. Lachmanns (1893) ; J. Grimm, biography in Kleine Schriften; W. Scherer in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xvii., and J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship, iii. (5908), pp.