Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Friedrich Gottlieb (1724-1803), a German poet. He was educated at the University of Leipsic and at Jena. An edition of his works, published at Leipsic near the close of his life, extends to twelve octavo volumes. His most important work is the Messias, in twenty cantos. The first three cantos were published in 1748, the others appearing at intervals for the next twenty-five years. The book is a poetical treatment of the story of Jesus as given in the New Testament. Klopstock's poem shows the influence of Milton to a marked degree. It was doubtless his aim to write a great epic. Whether the Messias is worthy to be so called or not, it is certain that its influence at the time of the publication of the first three cantos was very great. Two schools of criticism existed in Germany at this time. The one, called the Swiss school, demanded that which was natural in literature and held up Shakespeare and Milton as models. The other, led by Gottschied, advocated French models, despised the English, and clung to the formal and artificial. Klopstock's Messias was a great victory for the Swiss school. Gottschied's influence was broken, and from this time Germany began to awake to the fact that she might have a national literature. Klopstock's subject was scarcely suited for epical treatment. His poem contains many lyrical passages of a high order. Much of Klopstock's other writing is hardly intelligible. His name is important in the history of German literature , not so much for what he himself wrote as for his influence on the German people, and the expectation which he aroused that Germany would one day produce a great literature of its own, and not be beholden entirely to the ancients and to France. Klopstock began life for himself as a tutor. He held positions in several courts, important now only that they carried with them a pension and gave him opportunity to devote himself to literature and critical work. He lies buried in the village of Ottensen, near Hamburg, in which city he spent the later days of his life. See Heine ; Lessing
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 judgment has essentially become the settled one: the Messias is honoured rather than read, while the odes are prized. Where Aiton wrote that "much of Klopstock's other writing is hardly intelligible," modern criticism has largely reversed that, treating the free-rhythm odes such as "Die Frühlingsfeier" as his real achievement and as the model that made Goethe's and Hölderlin's unrhymed verse possible. The main scholarly event since 1910 is the great Hamburg critical edition of his works and letters, begun in the 1970s and still in progress, which for the first time put his manuscripts and vast correspondence on a reliable footing. His grave at Ottensen, now inside Hamburg's Altona district rather than a village near it, survives.
Written for this edition, 2026.