FLEMING, PAUL (1609-164o), German poet, was born at Hartenstein in the Saxon Erzgebirge, on Oct. 5, 2609, the son of the village pastor. He studied at Leipzig until driven away by the troubles of the Thirty Years' War. He was attached by Duke Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp to an embassy (1634-39) to Russia and Persia, to which the famous traveller Adam Olearius was secretary. Fleming died at Hamburg on April 2, 1640.
Though belonging to the school of Martin Opitz, Fleming is distinguished from most of his contemporaries by the ring of genuine feeling and religious fervour that pervades his lyric poems, even his occasional pieces.
Fleming's Teutsche Poemata (pr. 1642) were edited by J. M. Lap penberg, in the Bibliothek des litterarischen Vereins (2 vols., 1863; a third volume, i866, contains Fleming's Latin poems) . Selections by J. Tittmann in Deutsche Dichter des siebzehnten Jahrhwnderts (Leipzig, vol. ii., 5870), and by H. Osterley (Stuttgart, i885). See Rost, Paul Fleming (1909).