BURGER, GOTTFRIED AUGUST , Ger man poet of the Romantic school, was born at Molmerswende, near Halberstadt, on Dec. 31, 1747, the son of a pastor. His maternal grandfather sent him to the University of Halle and then to Gottingen to study law, but withdrew his support at Gottingen on account of the young man's irregular life. He became attached to, though not actually a member of, the group of young romanticists known as the Gottinger Hain, which included Voss, the counts Stolberg, Holtz and others, and his first poems were published in the Musenalmanach, edited at Gottingen by Boie and Gotter. In 1772, through Boie's influ ence, Burger obtained the post of "Amtmann" or district magis trate at Altengleichen near Gottingen. His grandfather now paid his debts. In 73 the ballad Lenore was published in the Musenalmanach. This vivid and dramatic poem made his name a household word in Germany. In Burger married Dorette Leonhart, daughter of a Hanoverian official. In 1778 Burger became editor of the Musenalmanach and in the same year pub lished the first collection of his poems. Pecuniary troubles op pressed him, and being accused of neglecting his official duties, and feeling his honour attacked, he gave up his position and in 1784 went to Gottingen, where he established himself as Privat docent. Shortly before, his wife died on July 3o, 1784, and on June 29, 1785, he married his sister-in-law "Molly." Her death on Jan. 9, 1786, affected him very deeply. He still continued to teach in Gottingen; at the jubilee of the foundation of the university in 1787 he was made an honorary doctor of philosophy, and in 1789 was appointed extraordinary professor in that faculty, though without a stipend. In the following year he married Elise Hahn. Only a few weeks of married life with his "Schwabenmxdchen" sufficed to prove his mistake, and after two and a half years he divorced her. Deeply wounded by Schiller's criticism, in the 14th and 15th part of the Allgerneine Literaturzeitung of 1791, of the 2nd edition of his poems, disappointed, wrecked in fortune and health, Burger eked out p, precarious existence as a teacher in Gottingen until his death there on June 8, Burger was honest in purpose, generous to a fault, tender hearted and modest. His lyric gift was very great, and in the romantic ballad he created a new genre, and found imitators both in Germany and in England. Lenore, Das Lied vom braven Manne, Die Kuh, Der Kaiser and der Abt and Der Wilde Jager are the classical examples. Among his purely lyrical poems, Das Blum chen Wunderhold and Lied an den lieben Mond found a place in many anthologies.
Editions of Burger's Siimtliche Schri f ten appeared at Gottingen, 1817 (incomplete) ; 1829-33 (8 vols.), and 1835 (1 vol.) ; later editions by E. Griesebach (5th ed., 1894) ; W. von Wurzbach (4 vols. 1902) . The Gedichte have been published in innumerable editions, by A. Sauer (2 vols. 1884) , Consentius (1914) and others. Brie f e von and an Burger were edited by A. Strodtmann in 4 vols. (1874) . On Burger's life see the introduction to Sauer's edition of the poems, and W. von Wurzbach, G. A. Burger (1900) .