Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel

Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel (September 27, 1820 - March 8, 1878), German classical scholar, was born at Ludwigsburg in the kingdom of Württemberg.

In 1849 he was appointed extraordinary, in 1857 ordinary professor in the university of Tubingen, which post he held till his death on the 8th of March 1878. His most important work was his Geschichte der römischen Litteratur (1870; 5th ed. by L Schwabe 1890; Eng. tr. by G.C. Warr, 1900), which, although written in an unattractive style, is indispensable to the student, the bibliographical information being especially valuable. After the death of A. Pauly, the editor of the well-known Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Teuffel, at first assisted by E.C. Walz, undertook the completion of the work, to which he also contributed numerous articles.

He was also the author of "Prolegomena zur Chronologie der horazischen Geschichte" (in Zeitschrift für die Altertumswissenschaft, 1842); Charakteristik des Horaz (Leipzig, 1842); Horaz, eine litterar-historische Übersicht (Tubingen, 1843), and of editions of the Clouds of Aristophanes (1856) and the Persae of Aeschylus (1866). His Studien und Charakteristiken (1871; 2nd ed., 1889) contain valuable contributions to the history of Greek and Roman literature. See S. Teuffel, Wilhelm Teuffel (1889); C. Bursian in Biographisches Jahrbuch (1878); F. Koldewey in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xxxvii.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.