Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter

Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter ( born September 3, 1746 Gotha, † March 18, 1797 ) was a German writer and poet.

Family

Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter grew up in a prestigious Gotha family of civil servants. His father was the Legationsrat Heinrich Ernst gods (1703-1772), his grandfather the famous hymn writer and lawyer Ludwig Andreas gods. Through his great-grandfather, the court preacher and general superintendent Johann Christian gods (1607-1677), he is also related with the diplomat Gustav Adolf von Gotter.

Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter was married to the Gothaerin Luise stairs. The marriage produced three daughters, the most famous Angelica Pauline Amalie, which was the second wife of Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling.

Life and work

Gods early received private lessons. Already in his early youth followed the first poetic attempts.

In 1763 he began studying law in Göttingen. During this time he began to be interested in the art of acting and even founded a drama group. For this he wrote and wrote poetry as well. Together with Heinrich Christian Boie gods founded the Göttingen Musenalmanach, who first appeared in 1770 when Johann Christian Dieterich.

After graduating gods went back to Gotha, where he initially held the position of an archivist at the court of Duke Ernst II of Saxe -Gotha -Altenburg. Later he became Secretary of Legation at the Imperial Chamber Court in Wetzlar and then private secretary of the Gotha court.

In parallel, Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter remained active as a writer and had close contacts with theater groups. Furthermore, he maintained close relations with theater directors and actors such as August Wilhelm Iffland, Conrad and Karl Theodor von Dalberg Ekhof.

The literary works of Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter are very comprehensive and varied. He wrote, inter alia, more than forty plays. These works made ​​him during his lifetime one of the most performed writers in German theaters. He continued to contribute as an actor and director with in the performance of his works. In addition, he wrote numerous templates for musical comedies ( libretti ) as well as plays and poems.

The best known is certainly his poem "Sleep, my little prince, go to sleep! " From the play " Esther ", which was set to music by Johann Friedrich Anton Fleischmann and in accordance with its composition by Bernhard Flies. Erroneously, the composition was long attributed to Mozart ( KV350 ).

The ironic poem " The uninhibited girls " ( I am a girl, fine and young ... ) is typical for Gotter style and was used mid-90s in one of the first television commercials ( in spoken version) for a mobile carrier. It was Corona Schröter (1751-1802), set to music by Franz Biebl later ( 1906-2001 ).

Not Catching ...

I am a girl, fine and young,

And thank God am still free;

I know nothing of Roman momentum

And hate ' sentimentality.

Light flows my blood. I love joke

I love singing and dancing.

My wealth is a joyful heart,

My jewelry a wreath of flowers.

Gullible, vain, weak;

And curiosity, love curiosity was

My inheritance sevenfold.

Even flee ' I am not the men track;

I told the mom,

We poor girls would only

For their sake there.

Drum sneaks into my simple mind

No stupid pride on.

Good for me that I am a girl!

Let be other angels!

Works (selection)

  • Blue Barth was a rich man
  • I am a girl, fine and young
  • The legacy-hunter. A comedy in five acts. Dyk, Leipzig 1789 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
  • The black man. A farce in Zwey files. Leipzig 1784th ed With a postscript. by Michael Rueppel. Revonnah publisher. ISBN 3-927715-77-8
  • The suspicious husband. A comedy in five acts. Ed with an epilogue. by Thorsten Unger. Wehrhahnlinie publisher. ISBN 3-86525-024-6
  • Haunted Island
Pauline Gotter Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg Lyric poetry Friedrich Fleischmann Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Neue Deutsche Biographie Zeno.org Integrated Authority File
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