Beschreibung:

HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770-1831). Autograph manuscript journal, Stuttgart, 26 June 1785 - 7 January 1787, inscribed on upper cover in autograph 'Tagebuch', in German and Latin, 86 pages, 4to , blank leaf, ff.1-38 in two gatherings, stitched as one, the remaining three bifolia loose, lacking an unknown number of leaves between ff39-40 and ff 40-41, grey paper wrapper. Provenance . G.W.F. Hegel; and by descent. THE MAJOR BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCE FOR HEGEL'S EARLY YEARS; THE MOST SIGNIFICANT AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT BY HEGEL KNOWN TO SURVIVE IN PRIVATE HANDS Hegel's journal of life as a schoolboy at the Stuttgart Gymnasium begins on Sunday 26 June 1785, with an account of the improvement of his historical knowledge through a sermon that morning about the Augsburg Confession; it continues, with a number of interruptions, as far as 7 January 1787, where it ends with a straightforward account of a day spenting walking and studying trigonometry; there are 74 entries in total. All commentators have remarked on the Tagebuch's 'objectivity', and indeed the diary is notable for its paucity of personal information, narrative or subjective observation. The character of the entries is, however, variable, and three distinct styles can be distinguished (H.S. Harris, Hegel's Development , 1972). Initially (to 25 July 1785), Hegel is concerned above all to make a note of his reading and scholarly activities, and to record his philosophical observations on the same, as well as on incidents in Stuttgart life: in this section we find reflections on the meaning of 'pragmatic history', a theory on Socrates's offering of a cock to Aesculapius, notes of conversations on walks with schoolmasters and schoolfriends, an obituary of an admired teacher, with a record of books purchased from his library, an application of some lines of Horace to the 'Charakter des weiblichen Geschlechts' (character of the female sex), and an entertaining description of a recurrence of the local supersition of the 'mutige Heer', a fairy army of dancing lights, which is discovered the next day to have been no more than the midnight return of guests from a concert (the whole inspires in Hegel a delighful outburst of schoolboy hilarity, 'Ha! Ha! Ha! O tempora! o mores! Geschehen Anno 1785. O! O!'). Hegel clearly felt the difficult of maintaining a journal of this sort - apologising for one interesting, but perhaps unduly personal, entry about his enjoyment of chess with the words 'I said so much about chess only in fugam vacui , so that the last day of this month should not stand empty'. From 29 July 1785, Hegel begins to keep his Tagebuch in Latin, professedly 'exercendi stili et roboris acquirendi causa' (for stylistic exercise and to acquire strength in the language), and much of the content for the next month is supplied from classical history. There are no entries between 25 August and 9 December, an interruption prompted by preparations for his examinations, and prolonged by serious illness. On resuming, Hegel returns to some extent to his initial 'commonplace book' style of journalising, still in Latin, and recounting his sickness, considering the death of a Stuttgart scholar, J.J. Moser, describing a house fire, and meditating on the love of money. At length on 6 March 1786 the journal relapses into German with an essay 'Über das Excipieren', which continues over four entries (with two Latin interruptions) until 21 March. The following day has the beginning of a meditation on the universal desire for happiness, interrupted by the loss of a number of leaves from the manuscript, and followed by a fragmentary entry on enlightenment. The next entry after this is for 1 January 1787, where Hegel resumes his journal as a simple record of daily events: he transcribes his school timetable for the week, confesses his inability to drag himself away from a popular novel, comments on the attractions of the young girls at a concert, and admits to his devotion to trigonometry. Af