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Der Messias ("The Messiah") is an epic poem published from 1748 to 1773 by German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock.
The poem consists of 19,458 dactylic hexameters, as compared with the 15,693 of Homer's Iliad . At Schulpforta, the classical school Klopstock attended 1739–1745, the plan for the poem was formulated. The project reflected the influence of Johann Jakob Bodmer's translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost , which Klopstock had read at the school. After developing his plan, Klopstock wrote a prose version of the first three cantos. After going to Leipzig in 1747, he recast the prose into dactylic hexameters. In 1748, this verse for the first three cantos appeared anonymously in the Bremer Beiträge ("Bremen Contributions"). The next two cantos appeared in 1750, and the next five appeared in 1755. Ten more cantos appeared substantially later – five in 1768 and five in 1773.
When the first three cantos appeared, it took the public a year to get accustomed to the novelty of the form and content, after which the poem's success was unprecedented; its readers awaited with impatience the next cantos. The poem became regarded in some circles as equal to the epics of Dante and Milton, especially by women and religious people.[ citation needed ]
In using hexameters for his verse, Klopstock had abandoned the traditional Alexandrines. This loosed a storm of criticism on his head from the school of Johann Christoph Gottsched, who ridiculed what he called Klopstock's "seraphic spirit of fanaticism", his strictures on Gottsched's dogmatism, his effeminate and morbid tenderness, and his religious sentimentality. These criticisms were later confirmed by Lessing, although in a milder and more dignified spirit. On the other hand, the school of Bodmer applauded. [1] It has been said that the work of no German poet before Richard Wagner aroused such controversy. Goethe's Autobiography tells us that his father banished the book from the house because of its blank verse.
The fame of the work rests on the first ten cantos. By the time the last ten cantos came out, interest in the work had ebbed. A flood of epic imitations on various biblical subjects attested to his contemporary influence, and all the younger poets of his day learned from Klopstock, but the 19th century admired him from an ever-increasing distance.[ citation needed ]
The poem was the means of introducing Klopstock to Meta Moller, who became his wife. She had come across the poem in the curl papers on a friend's dressing table, the papers having been cut from the poem, and wanted to meet Klopstock. [2] A mutual friend introduced them in 1751. [2] [3]
The theme of the poem is the redemption of mankind, and the poem starts with Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Klopstock's work shows he learned much from Milton. However, instead of strong contrasts, going from darkness to light, from misery to bliss, Klopstock attempts to portray a mental state of continuous, dazzling brilliancy. Instead of an alternation of clashes, there is contemplation. Notable descriptions are those of hell, the council of the devils, their punishment through transformation, the trips through the universe made by angels and devils, and the vision of the last judgment.
Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows :
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
The elegiac couplet is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, adopted the same form in Latin many years later. As with the English heroic couplet, each pair of lines usually makes sense on its own, while forming part of a larger work.
Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the Hymns of Orpheus. According to Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by Phemonoe, daughter of Apollo and the first Pythia of Delphi.
Poetry is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet. Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm, and sound symbolism, to produce musical or incantatory effects. Most poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow a rhythmic or other deliberate pattern. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym for poetry.
Nonnus of Panopolis was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid and probably lived in the 5th century CE. He is known as the composer of the Dionysiaca, an epic tale of the god Dionysus, and of the Metabole, a paraphrase of the Gospel of John. The epic Dionysiaca describes the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return. It was written in Homeric Greek and in dactylic hexameter, and it consists of 48 books at 20,426 lines.
Christoph Martin Wieland was a German poet and writer, representative of literary Rococo. He is best-remembered for having written the first Bildungsroman, as well as the epic Oberon, which formed the basis for both Friederike Sophie Seyler's opera of the same name and Carl Maria von Weber's opera of the same name. His thought was representative of the cosmopolitanism of the German Enlightenment, exemplified in his remark: "Only a true cosmopolitan can be a good citizen." He was a key figure of Weimar Classicism and a collaborator of Abel Seyler's theatre company.
Johann Jakob Bodmer was a Swiss author, academic, critic and poet.
Johann Christoph Gottsched was a German philosopher, author and critic of the Enlightenment.
Johann KasparLavater was a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist and theologian.
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was a German poet. His best known works are the epic poem Der Messias and the poem Die Auferstehung, with the latter set to text in the finale of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2. One of his major contributions to German literature was to open it up to exploration outside of French models.
A dactyl is a foot in poetic meter. In quantitative verse, often used in Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight. The best-known use of dactylic verse is in the epics attributed to the Greek poet Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. In accentual verse, often used in English, a dactyl is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables—the opposite is the anapaest.
The Seasons is the first Lithuanian poem written by Kristijonas Donelaitis around 1765–1775. It is in quantitative dactylic hexameters as often used for Latin and Ancient Greek poetry. It was published as "Das Jahr" in Königsberg, 1818 by Ludwig Rhesa, who also named the poem and selected the arrangement of the parts. The German translation was included in the first edition of the poem. The book was dedicated to Wilhelm von Humboldt. The poem is considered a masterpiece of early Lithuanian literature.
The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205–184 BC.
Messiah is a title given to a saviour or liberator of a group of people in Abrahamic religions.
Mary Collyer was an English translator and novelist.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Bremer Beiträge was the designation for the weekly magazine Neue Beyträge zum Vergnügen des Verstandes und Witzes. It was published from 1744 to 1759 during the Age of Enlightenment.
Der Messias, K. 572, is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1789 German-language version of Messiah, George Frideric Handel's 1741 oratorio. On the initiative of Gottfried van Swieten, Mozart adapted Handel's work for performances in Vienna.
Margareta Klopstock or Meta Klopstock was a German writer. Her letters, particularly those to Samuel Richardson, and the story of her life were popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She was married to the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock.
