Other Notable Figures of the Nineteenth Century


The Arts

Music

Johannes Brahms (Germany, 1833-97)

Frederic Chopin (France, 1810-49)

Franz Listz (Hungary, 1811-86)

Felix Mendelsshon (Germany, 1809-47). Composer who was the grandson of Moses Mendelsshon, a contemporary of Immanuel Kant.

Franz Schubert (Austria, 1791-1828)

Robert Schumann (Germany, 1810-56)

Johann Strauss (Germany, 1825-99)

Josef Strauss (Germany, 1827-70)

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (Russia, 1840-93)

Guiseppe Verdi (Italy, 1813-1901)

Richard Wagner (Germany, 1813-83) Operatic composer who at one time was admired by Nietzsche. But by 1876 (see Nietzsche Contra Wagner) Nietzsche condemned Wagner's newer work as decadent in its embrace of chastity and Christian values in general. He also claimed that Wagner used Schopenhauer's philosophy as a "prop" for asceticism. In On the Genealogy of Morals (Essay III, Section 3), Nietzsche accused Wagner of "a despairing, unsure, unacknowledged will to preach nothing other than reversion, conversion, denial, Christianity, medievalism, and to say to his disciples 'it is no good! seek salvation elsewhere!'"

Painting

Vincent van Gogh (The Netherlands, 1853-90)

Edouard Manet (France, 1832-83)

J. M. W. Turner (England, 1775-1851)

Literature

Anton Checkhov (Russia, 1860-1904)

Samuel Clemens (United States, 1835-1910)

Charles Dickens (Great Britain, 1812-70)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Germany, 1749-1832) Text of Faust (1808)

Edgar Allen Poe (United States, 1809-49)

Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1828-1912)

Herman Melville (United States, 1819-91)

Edgar Allen Poe (United States, 1809-49)


The Sciences

John Dalton (England, 1766-1844) Laid the foundation for modern chemistry.

Charles Darwin (England, 1809-82) Created the theory of evolution.

Pierre Laplace (France, 1749-1827) Systematized Newton's physics. Pioneer in probability theory. When asked by Napoleon why God was not mentioned in the book on physics, Laplace replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis." Ludwig von Helmholtz (Germany, 1821-94) Physiologist and physicist.

James Clerk Maxwell (Scotland, 1831-79)


Politics

Napoleon Bonaparte (France)

Otto von Bismark (Germany, 1815-98) Created the German empire and served as its first Chancellor.

Queen Victoria (Great Britain, 1837-1901)

Abraham Lincoln (United States, 1809-65) Sixteenth president of the United States. Emancipated the slaves.

Nineteenth Century Philosophy