CARL FRIEDRICH WILHELM ALFRED FLECKEISEN (1820-1899), German philologist and critic, was born at Wolfenbiittel on the 23rd of September 1820. He was educated at the Helmstedt gymnasium and the university of Göttingen. After holding several educational posts, he was appointed in 1861 to the vice-principalship of the Vitzthum'sches Gymnasium at Dresden, which he held till his retirement in 1889. He died on the 7th of August 1899. Fleckeisen is chiefly known for his Labours on Plautus and Terence; in the knowledge of these authors he was unrivalled, except perhaps by Ritschl, his lifelong friend and a worker in the same field. His chief works are: Exercitationes Plautinae (1842), one of the most masterly productions on the language of Plautus; "Analecta Plautina," printed in Philologus, ii. (1847); Plauti Comoediae, i., ii. (1850-1851, unfinished), introduced by an Epistula critica ad F. Ritschelium; P. Terenti Afri Comoediae (new ed., 1898). In his editions he endeavoured to restore the text in accordance with the results of his researches on the usages of the Latin language and metre. He attached great importance to the question of orthography, and his short treatise Fiinfzig Artikel (1861) is considered most valuable. Fleckeisen also contributed largely to the Jahrbucher fiir Philologie, of which he was for many years editor.
See obituary notice by G. Gotz in C. Bursian's Biographisches Jahrbuch fur Altertumskunde (xxiii., 1901), and article by H. Usener in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (where the date of birth is given as the 20th of September).