Karl Witte

German jurist and scholar of Dante Alighieri

Karl Witte.

Johann Heinrich Friedrich Karl Witte (July 1, 1800 - March 6, 1883) was a German jurist and scholar of Dante Alighieri.

## Biography

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Karl Witte was born in Lochau, now part of Schkopau. He was the son of pastor Karl Heinrich Gottfried Witte (1767–1845) who encouraged a fairly intense program of learning. When Karl Witte was nine, he spoke German, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek, and on April 10, 1814, at the age of 13, he became a doctor of philosophy at the University of Giessen in Germany.[1] As a result, Witte was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "youngest doctorate", a record that still stands; however, The Guinness Book of World Records lists his age as 12.[2]

Witte was the subject of a book written by his father: The Education of Karl Witte: Or, The Training of the Child. This book attracted criticism and soon fell into oblivion in Germany.

He achieved his reputation as a Dante scholar in 1823 with his essay "The Art of Misunderstanding Dante".[3]

Witte died in Halle.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Witte, Karl Heinrich Gottfried (1914). Bruce, H. Addington (ed.). The Education of Karl Witte: Or, The Training of the Child. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. pp. xvii, 312. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
2. ^ Wolf, Buck (October 23, 2009). "10 Unbreakable Guinness Records". AOL News. Archived from the original on September 1, 2013. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
3. ^ Riordan, Roger (March 11, 1899). "Four Recent Books: Verse by Thomas Hardy, Essays on Dante, The Chinese Classics, and a Bismarck Book" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2013.

## External links

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* Works by Karl Witte at Project Gutenberg
* Works by or about Karl Witte at the Internet Archive
* "The Art of Misunderstanding Dante" in Essays on Dante, p. 19, at Google Books

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