Researching Friedrich Hagen

He was born at Angermünde-Schmiedeberg in the Uckermark region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg. After studying law at the University of Halle, he obtained a legal appointment in the state service at Berlin, but in 1806 resigned in order to devote himself exclusively to letters. In 1810 he was appointed professor extraordinarius of German literature at the University of Berlin. In the following year he was transferred in a similar capacity to the University of Breslau, and in 1821 returned to Berlin as professor ordinarius. Although von der Hagen's critical work is now entirely out of date, he is credited with awakening an interest in old German poetry.

Principal publications:*the Nibelungenlied, of which he issued four editions, the first in 1810 and the last in 1842*the Minnesinger (Leipzig, 1838–1856, 4 vols. in 5 parts)*Lieder der altern Edda (Berlin, 1812)*Gottfried von Strassburg (Berlin, 1823)*a collection of Old German tales under the title Gesammtabenteuer (Stuttgart, 1850, 3 vol.)*Das Heldenbuch (Leipzig, 1855).*Die Thidrekssaga.*Hundert Deutsche Erzählungen (includes Der Busant, 1850; republished 1961)

He also published Über die ältesten Darstellungen der Faustsage (Berlin, 1844); and from 1835 he edited Das neue Jahrbuch der Berlinischen Gesellschaft der deutsche Sprache und Altertumskunde. His correspondence with Christian Gottlob Heyne and Georg Friedrich Benecke was published by K. Dziatzko (Leipzig, 1893).

He studied medicine at the universities Munich and Erlangen, receiving his doctorate in 1836. He worked as a medical practitioner in Velden, and in 1844 visited various mental institutions in England, France and Germany (Siegburg, Illenau, Heidelberg and Winnenthal). In 1846 he began work at the district mental hospital in Erlangen as an assistant to Karl August von Solbrig, and three years later, was named director of the mental hospital at Kloster Irsee near Kaufbeuren. In 1859 he succeeded Solbrig as director of the district mental hospital in Erlangen, and during the following year, was appointed professor of psychiatry at the University of Erlangen.

Along with fellow psychiatrists, Bernhard von Gudden, Hubert von Grashey and Max Hubrich (1837–1896), he was tasked with determining the sanity of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. On 8 June 1886, the four doctors unanimously ruled that Ludwig was most likely mentally unfit to govern. Incredibly, up to that point in time, none of the four had ever personally examined the king as a patient.