Talk:Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Odd Remark
The text includes an entry I find odd and disturbing:

''Susceptible to feminine charm, he had many romances. Most of the girls were from poor families. In 1777 he met Maria Stechard, then aged 13, who lived with the professor permanently since 1780.''

Exactly what is the import of including the reference to Maria Stechard immediately after stating Ls susceptibility to feminine charm (my, but doesn't that sounds like a phrase from out of a Victorian novel)? Is this meant to suggest that Professor Lichtenberg was a pedophile?

--Philopedia 11:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * it's simply the truth. Anyone familiar with Lichtenberg's biography knows about that. 93.219.165.251 (talk) 14:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * O, that's just one of the aspects of Lichtenberg's personal life that biographers like to mention. You can change the phrasing if you think that's bad, of course. For me, a Chinese, marrying a teenage girl is by no means an abnormal thing, so nothing assoicated with pedophile occurs to me when I wrote that sentnece. (Edgar Poe also married his teenage counsin, right? I don't know that's such a sensitive matter in the West, sorry) --K.C. Tang 00:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Maria Stechard was 12 years old when she became Lichtenberg's housemaid and 13 when she became his lover. By all means, no, it doesn't mean Lichtenberg was a pedophile. Before the 19th century, sexual relationships in an age that young were not unusual. Sophie von Kühn was 12 when she first met Novalis and became his fiancée on her 13th birthday. Juliet Capulet, as depicted by Shakespeare, is 13, and, as her Wiki article correctly states, during the span of less than a week's time in which the play takes place, " she is courted by a potential husband, falls in love, marries illicitly, loses her virginity, experiences the death of a cousin she is close to, is threatened and nearly disowned by both of her parents, is betrayed by the nurse who raised her from infancy, becomes suicidal, spends nearly two days drugged to unconsciousness, is widowed, and commits suicide next to the body of her husband.". And yes, Edgar Allan Poe married his cousin Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe when she was 13. --84.58.253.231 23:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

No, it was not common. After all Goethe is of the same generation (*1749) and  I'm unaware of such claims about him. It was a source of gossip, see e.g.: http://klaus-seehafer.de/dichter_denker/lichtenberg.htm There are also such remarks in the Göttinger Jahrbuch 1980 (wasn't able to read it online). Lichtenberg was, unfortunately, a rather wicked, sex-obsessed, dirty man. CelibataireI (talk) 21:04, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Height estimation
I am removing that part of the caption accompanying his monument that states, "This "Monument" is life size, and from the rubbish bin nearby it can be discerned that Lichtenberg was about 155 cm." It dates to this edit of 10:36, 17 October 2006 commented "Added various details from German version". Neither the current German version nor the one dating to that edit make mention of this, and its tone suggests OR. It would seem likely that any reliable source stating that the monument was truly life size would state its height directly, not from comparison to a rubbish bin. -- ToET 11:02, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Dead link
This link is dead.
 * Compilations of biographies and images

✅ &mdash; goethean &#2384; 20:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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