| Leon Kellner | |
| Birth Date: | 17 April 1859 |
| Birth Place: | Tarnów, Austrian Empire |
| Death Place: | Vienna, Austria |
| Alma Mater: | University of Vienna (PhD, 1883) |
| Occupation: | Grammarian, Shakespearian, Zionist |
| Years Active: | 18901928 |
| Notable Works: | Historical Outlines of English Syntax (London 1892) Restoring Shakespeare (Leipzig 1925) |
Leon Kellner (Hebrew: ליאון קלנר; 17 April 18595 December 1928) was an English lexicographer, grammarian, and Shakespearian scholar. He was also a political activist and a promoter of Zionism.
Leon Kellner was born in Tarnów, Austrian Empire, the son of Jewish grocers Rafael and Lea Kellner. He began to learn the Hebrew alphabet at the age of three, and by five he entered a cheder to study the Torah and the Mishnah.[1]
In 1876, Kellner entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, and in 1880 he enrolled at the University of Vienna to study Germanic languages with emphasis on English language and literature.[2]
Kellner was awarded a PhD degree in 1883, and the title of his dissertation, published in 1885, was Zur Syntax des englischen Verbums, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Shakespeares (The syntax of the English verb, with special consideration of Shakespeare). Kellner travelled to London in 1887 where the Early English Text Society invited him to translate William Caxton's Blanchardyn and Eglantine. Then in 1890 Kellner received his habilitation after publishing a thesis based on original research titled Caxton's Syntax and Style. Kellner dedicated his translation of Caxton and his habilitation thesis to Frederick James Furnivall, founder of the Early English Text Society.[2]
After receiving his degree, Kellner taught in various schools until a scholarship sent him to London in 1887 to study at the British Museum. He returned to the University of Vienna in 1890 to lecture in English literature. In 1904 he became a professor of English at the University of Czernowitz, a post he held until 1914 when he fled Czernowitz at the beginning of World War I. After the war, Kellner served as a translator in the office of the President of the Austrian Republic and lectured at the Technical University of Vienna.[3] During Kellner's lifetime, his work met with mixed sentiments among native English speakers. When Geschichte der Nordamerikanischen Literatur (American Literature) was translated into English by Julia Franklin in 1915, reviewer Ellen Fitz Gerald found many flaws in Kellner's judgments, notably his statement, "We look in vain...for an epic that glorifies...great [American] deeds."[4] In reviewing Restoring Shakespeare, John W. Draper wrote in 1926 that although Kellner's emendations were novel and ingenious, they were unnecessary.[5]
When philologist Jakob Schipper retired from the University of Vienna in 1913, Kellner was considered to be his successor. But the university left the post vacant rather than accept Kellner, an active proponent of Zionism.[2]
In 1896 Kellner became a friend and assistant to Theodor Herzl, a political activist and founder of the Zionist Organization. Kellner also became active in the Jüdischnationale Partei or Jewish National Party. He contributed to Herzl's weekly publication, Die Welt,[6] for which he first wrote under his own name and later the pseudonym Leo Rafaels.[3] [1] [7]
Kellner published a two-volume collection of Herzl's writings in 1908, Theodor Herzl's Zionistische Schriften (lit. Theodor Herzl's Zionist Writings), and in 1920 he published Theodor Herzl's Lehrjahre (lit. Theodor Herzl's Apprentice Years).