Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803), German poet and dramatist, who was one of the earliest important writers of the German classical period. He was born in Quedlinburg, educated at the universities in Jena and Leipzig, and played an important part in freeing German literature from French and other foreign influences. His principal poetic work was The Messiah, a religious epic. He began it while at school and completed it in four volumes between 1751 and 1773. The Messiah has been widely translated and imitated. Klopstock's reputation as a lyric poet, however, has endured better than his fame as an epic or a dramatic poet. His best lyrics are contained in the volume Oden (1747-1780), a collection of poems on religion, friendship, and nature. Klopstock also wrote religious dramas in verse with themes taken from the Old Testament. He was an ardent nationalist; in a trilogy of prose dramas, Hermanns Schlacht (Hermann's Battle, 1769), Hermann und die Fürsten (Hermann and the Princes, 1784), and Hermanns Tod (Hermann's Death, 1787), he glorified Arminius, or Hermann, a 1st-century German national hero.