Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2013 8:29:38 GMT -5
I already knew that Grieg (the composer) was really a Scotchman; now I discover (in The Life of Immanuel Kant, by J.H.W. Stuckenberg, D.D.) that Kant too was one:
"While there is no trace of family genius, we have in Kant an union of the blood of the two nations which are most distinguished for their metaphysical speculations, namely the Scotch and the German. His father, John George Cant, born near Memel, in Prussia, was the son of Scotch parents who had emigrated thither from Scotland. Kant himself states that for some unknown reason quite a number of Scotch families emigrated to Sweden and Germany, at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, and that his paternal grandparents were among these emigrants. Of these ancestors, and of Kant's other paternal relations, nothing is known. Even of John George Cant scarcely anything is recorded ; his celebrated son, with his characteristic reticence respecting his early life, rarely referred to him."
And Doctor Stuckenberg goes on to relate that "Immanuel changed the name from Cant to Kant. This change is accounted for by a story which indicates his sensitiveness. A boy teased him by saying that the C in his name should be pronounced like a Z, so that Cant would become Zant. This induced him to write it Kant. In the catalogue of the gymnasium which he attended, the name is spelt in five ways: Cant, Candt, Cante, Kant, and Kandt."
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Nov 22, 2013 10:55:26 GMT -5
I already knew that Grieg (the composer) was really a Scotchman; now I discover (in The Life of Immanuel Kant, by J.H.W. Stuckenberg, D.D.) that Kant too was one: "While there is no trace of family genius, we have in Kant an union of the blood of the two nations which are most distinguished for their metaphysical speculations, namely the Scotch and the German. His father, John George Cant, born near Memel, in Prussia, was the son of Scotch parents who had emigrated thither from Scotland. Kant himself states that for some unknown reason quite a number of Scotch families emigrated to Sweden and Germany, at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, and that his paternal grandparents were among these emigrants. Of these ancestors, and of Kant's other paternal relations, nothing is known. Even of John George Cant scarcely anything is recorded ; his celebrated son, with his characteristic reticence respecting his early life, rarely referred to him." And Doctor Stuckenberg goes on to relate that "Immanuel changed the name from Cant to Kant. This change is accounted for by a story which indicates his sensitiveness. A boy teased him by saying that the C in his name should be pronounced like a Z, so that Cant would become Zant. This induced him to write it Kant. In the catalogue of the gymnasium which he attended, the name is spelt in five ways: Cant, Candt, Cante, Kant, and Kandt." Grieg was not a "Scotchman". His mother was Norwegian and he was of Scottish (not "Scotch", please - that's the amber nectar!) origin on his father's side, hispaternal great-grandfather Alexander Greig having hailed from Aberdeen and settled in Norway more than 70 years before the composer's birth. Likewise, in Kant's case, his father's father had emigrated to Germany from Scotland but - at least as far as I am aware (and please correct me if I am wrong here) - his mother was German. On that basis, both Grieg and Kant were of mixed origin.
|
|