Christian Theodor Ludwig Lucas


Christian Theodor Ludwig Lucas, also known as Ludwig Lucas or C.T.L. Lucas was a German writer and pedagogue.

Life

Lucas enrolled to study, first Protestant Theology and then law at the University of Königsberg in 1816. In March 1818, he represented the Königsberger Landsmannschaft on the Allgemeinen Deutschen Burschenschaft in Jena. On behalf of Theodor von Schön, Oberpräsident of West Prussia he organised the libraries and archives of the monasteries, following the dissolution of 1818–1835. In 1820 he began an academic career. In 1822 he became a teacher at the Altstadt Gymnasium in Königsberg, in 1828 he served on Government School Board as an assistant to Gustav Friedrich Dinter and in 1832 became director of the newly reorganised Kneiphof Gymnasium. By 1835 he was an associate professor of German literature. Succeeding Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann, he served on the Provincial School Board for East Prussia in 1843, and in 1848 transferred to Posen Province.

Influence

He is best known in the English literature the influence of his writing on legends on Wagner, in particular the role of Über den Krieg von Wartburg in inspiring the opera Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg. Through the work of Lucas, Wagner learned much about Mediaeval saga, as he put it "The German Middle Ages in a significant coloring I had not yet dreamed of". Wagner also drew on Lucas for his Lohengrin, Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde operas.

Selected publications

Include: