Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb
(frēˈdrĭkh gôtˈlēp klôpˈshtôk) [key], 1724–1803, German poet,
important for his influence upon Goethe, the Göttingen poets,
and the Sturm und Drang movement. His epic Messias (4 vol.,
1748–73, tr. The Messiah ) created a literary storm when it
first appeared in the Bremen Beiträge. The poem has the merit of
being the first major modern work by a distinctively German
poet, but the poem as a whole is weak, for Klopstock's genius
was lyrical rather than epic. His rhapsodic, musical Odes
(1747–80) strongly influenced German song composition. Gluck, C.
P. E. Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler, and many others set
them to music. Klopstock also wrote a trilogy of dramas on the
Germanic hero Hermann (1769, 1784, 1787). The Columbia
Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia
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articles on: German Literature: Biographies