Johann Christian Günther

Johann Christian Günther ( born April 8, 1695 in Striegau, † March 15, 1723 in Jena ) was a German lyric poet.

Life

The son of a doctor visited 1710-1715 high school in Schweidnitz, where his youth drama " The regret of Theodosio jealousy " was performed. He became engaged to Eleonore Magdalena Jachmann, the " Leonore " of his later poems.

In 1715 he took his father's wish following a medical school in Wittenberg. It came to a rift with his father because of this his intention to earn a living as a poet, strictly refused. 1716 could be crowned poet laureate Günther Caesareus. Due to the associated financial expenses in 1717 he landed in debtors' prison.

In the same year he went to Leipzig, where he enrolled at the university. He was promoted by writer and historian Johann Burckhardt Menckestraße, who was convinced of his major talent, but the it in 1719 failed to get him a job as a court poet of Augustus the Strong in Dresden. An attempt to settle in 1720 as a doctor in Cross castle in Silesia, failed, as is the effort to achieve reconciliation with the Father. As a result, Johann Christian Günther lived as a guest of the study families of different friends. He returned in 1723, already ill, to Jena, where he 27 -year-old died of tuberculosis.

Importance

Günther is the most significant German poets of the early 18th century. Formally assign the baroque period, it is to be designated because of the strong inner emotion and outspoken individual stamping his literature as a precursor of the Enlightenment. This follows in part from the fact that Günther must have come with the writings of Christian Thomasius, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff in touch. This has not changed his sense of tradition, but those philosophers influenced his views on authority, doctrine and religion.

Famous in his day he was by his Ode on the Peace of Passaro joke of 1718. Was not until a year after his death Johann Christian Günther appeared from Silesia, and partly still niegedruckte, partly already published, German and Latin poems, which established his fame. The first complete edition of his works from 1742 underwent six editions; William Kramer brought 1930-1936 a historical- critical edition out. Goethe praised his work in poetry and truth: "A decided talent, gifted with sensuality, imagination, memory, transfer of grasping and Vergegenwärtigens, fertile in the highest degree, rhythmic convenient, witty, funny and are informed in many cases. "

The Encyclopædia Britannica calls Günther "one of the most important German lyric poets of the period in between the Middle Ages and the early Goethe. "

Expenditure

• Poems by Johann Christian Günther. Edited by Berthold Litzmann. Leipzig 1910 [ 1 Ed 1897 ]: Reclam ( early literacy issue, chronologically arranged selection according to life stages of the poet )
• Complete Works. Historical- Critical Edition. Edited by William Kramer. Leipzig, Darmstadt and Stuttgart 1930 ff ( = library of the Literary Association Stuttgart). ( However, this historical- critical edition can not be described as such. Among other things, the spelling has been normalized. )
• Works. Edited by Reiner Böhlhoff. Library of the early modern period. Second Department. Literature in the Age of the Baroque. Vol 10, Frankfurt am Main 1998:. . Classic German publisher ( This edition preserves the original spelling and is striving these restituted by historical-critical method in the absence of manuscripts Typographical peculiarities of the texts, however, also be normalized here's Preserves the Baroque override of the umlauts. )

Literature (selection )

• Johann Christian Günther. ( = Text Kritik, 74/75 ). Edition Text Kritik, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-88377-107-4
• Laura Bignotti: Johann Christian Günther's spiritual poetry. " You must your Saythenchor after David's harp draw ". Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8288-2199-6
• Henning Boetius: Beauty of Degeneracy. btb, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-442-72830-4 ( biographical novel )
• Helga Bütler -Schön: understanding of poetry and self-expression with Johann Christian Günther. Studies for his job poems, satires and lamentations. ( = Studies on the German, English and Comparative Literature, 99). Bouvier, Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-416-01577-0
• Gerhard Dünnhaupt: Johann Christian Günther ( 1695-1723 ). In: Personal bibliographies on the printing of the Baroque. Volume 3 Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-7772-9105-6, pp. 1913-1931 (factory and bibliography)
• Robert Eitner: Johann Christian Günther. In: General German Biography (ADB ). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 170-173.
• Leopold Federmair: The Passions of the Soul Johann Christian Günther. An attempt at the failure. ( = Stuttgarter work on German literature; 215 / Salzburg contributions; 16). Heinz, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-88099-219-3
• Eike Fuhrmann: Günther, Johann Christian. In: New German Biography ( NDB ). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5, pp. 269-71 ( digitized ).
• Adalbert Hoffmann: Johann Christian Günther bibliography. Appendix: one for the first time published satire against Günther with their foreplay. Breslau 1929 (reprint: Olms, Hildesheim, 1965)
• William Kramer: The life of the Silesian poet Johann Christian Günther 1695-1723. With sources and notes to the life and work of the poet and his contemporaries. 2nd edition. Klett- Cotta, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-924391-7
• Ursula Regener: Mute songs? For motivational and species-historical situating of Johann Christian Günther " in love poems ". ( = Sources and research on language and cultural history of the Germanic peoples; 218; NF 94). De Gruyter, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-11-012128- X
• Jens Stüben (ed.): Johann Christian Günther ( 1695-1723 ). Oldenburg symposium on the 300th anniversary of the poet. ( = Writings of the Federal Institute for East German Culture and History, 10). Oldenbourg, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-486-56253-3