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Georg Rudolf Weckherlin

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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GEORG RUDOLF WECKHERLIN (1584-1653), German poet, was born at Stuttgart on the 15th of September 1584. After studying law he settled at Stuttgart, and, as secretary to the Duke Johann Friedrich of Wurttemberg, was employed on diplomatic missions to France and England. Between 1620 and 1624 he lived in England in the service of the Palatinate, and seems also to have been employed by the English govern - ment. In 1644 he was appointed "Secretary for Foreign Tongues" in England, a position in which, on the establishment of the Commonwealth, he was followed byMilton. He died in London on the 13th of February 1653. Weckherlin was the most distinguished of the circle of South German poets who prepared the way for the Renaissance movement associated in Germany with Martin Opitz. Two volumes of his Oden und Geseinge appeared in 1618 and 1619; his collected Geistliche und weltliche Gedichte in 1641. His models were the poets of the French Pleiade, and with his psalms, odes and sonnets he broke new ground for the German lyric. An epic poem on the death of Gustavus Adolphus, in alexandrines, seems to have won most favour with his contemporaries.

Weckherlin's Gedichte have been edited by H. Fischer for the Stuttgarter Literarischer Verein(vols. cxcix.-cc., 1894-1895). Selections were published by W. Muller (1823) and K. Goedeke (1873). See also C. P. Conz, Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Schrif ten Weckherlins (1803); E. Hopfner, G. R. Weckherlins Oden und Gesange (1865); H. Fischer, Beitrage zur Literaturgeschichte Schwabens (1891), and the same author's article in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (1896).