XLIX. Georg Rodolf Weckherlin

A Swabian precursor (1584-1653) of the Opitzian era. In the service of the Duke of Würtemberg he lived some years in France and England, where he became familiar with the literary forms and fashions of the Renascence. These he imitated in German, writing odes, songs (for the reader), anacreontics, sonnets, epigrams, elegies in alexandrine verse, and occasional poems of elaborate metrical structure. For the most part his substance is very thin, consisting in extravagant and affected praise, with much infusion of Roman mythology, of the high-born personages by whose favor he prospered or hoped to prosper. The text of the selections follows Goedeke’s edition in Deutsche Dichter des 17. Jahrhunderts.