Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , 1724-1803, German poet, important for his influence upon Goethe, the Göttingen poets, and the Sturm und Drang movement. His epic Messias (4 vol., 1748-73, tr. The Messiah ) created a literary storm when it first appeared in the Bremen Beiträge. The poem has the merit of being the first major modern work by a distinctively German poet, but the poem as a whole is weak, for Klopstock's genius was lyrical rather than epic. His rhapsodic, musical Odes (1747-80) strongly influenced German song composition. Gluck, C. P. E. Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler, and many others set them to music. Klopstock also wrote a trilogy of dramas on the Germanic hero Hermann (1769, 1784, 1787).

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb (1724–1803) German poet. He anticipated the Sturm und Drang movement and influenced other poets, notably Goethe, Rilke, and Hölderlin. While a student he began writing the epic poem The Messiah.

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb (1724–1803), German poet. He spent many years in Denmark, where King Frederick V gave him a pension to enable him to complete Der Messias. This poem, of nearly twenty thousand lines, deals with the Passion and forty days after the Resurrection. It not only describes events on earth, but introduces hosts of angels and devils, even the Trinity itself appearing, giving to every event and action its deeper significance.