Nicolae Quintescu

Nicolae Quintescu

Nicolae Chiriac Quintescu (February 21, 1841–August 12, 1913) was a Wallachian, later Romanian philologist, essayist and translator.

He was born in Craiova; his father seems to have been Chiriac Chintescu, who farmed a nearby plot of land given to him on lease. Chiriac appears in a petition of 1831 and was on the city council in 1848. Nicolae later described himself as a "son of Oltenia" who grew up "in the fortifying atmosphere.... in which Ioan Maiorescu had worked". He graduated from Saint Sava College in Bucharest,^[1] and in 1861 left for Germany.^[2] There, he took a degree in classical philology from Bonn University and, in 1867, a doctorate in literature from the University of Berlin. The same year, after returning home, he became a professor of classical philology at the University of Iași; in 1881, he transferred to the University of Bucharest,^[1] retiring from the post in 1902.^[2] He became director of the capital city's higher normal school in 1898,^[1] serving for a brief period of time.^[2] While in Iași, Quintescu belonged to Junimea society,^[1] contributing to its Convorbiri Literare journal,^[2] but came into conflict with other members due to disagreements over philology.^[1] Elected a titular member of the Romanian Academy in 1877,^[3] he served as secretary of its literary section.^[1] Within the Academy, he belonged to a committee tasked with writing a dictionary, and to another that met in 1903 to standardize spelling norms.^[2] His activity as a writer began when Quintescu wrote unpublished poems as a young man; he later focused on literary commentary from a comparatist perspective. He authored travel accounts, also translating Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Egmont and Friedrich Schiller's Die Huldigung der Künste.^[1]

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