VTIELAND, CIIRISTOPH MARTIN, one of the greatest of German poets, was born, Sept. 5, 1733. at Oberholzheim, near Biberach, his father being pastor of that place and afterward in Biberach itself. The precocity of his powers early excited attention, and when only 12 years of age, he had essayed his poetical talent both in Latin and in Ger man verses. In 1750 Wieland went to the university of Tubingen to study law, but occupied himself more with the classics, and with recent literature both native and foreign. From Tubingen, he returned to Biberach in 1752. At this time, Klopstock's example had an extraordinary influence on him, so that be gave himself up to 2 mysti cal piety, foreign to his nature, which he gives utterance to in the Empfindungen den Christen (The Christian's Experiences). While in this mood, an invitation from Bodmer led him to give up the intention of graduating at Gottingen, and go to ZUrich. The number and nature of his production at this time show the effect which the example of Bodmer's desultory way of working was beginning to have upon him. He soon, how ever. returned to the more congenial field of the literature and life of the Greeks. The lively interest which he took in Frederick the great prompted Wieland to work out the ideal of a hero in a great poem, for which purpose he fixed on Cryus. The first five cantos appeared, 1757, and a new edition, 1759; but the reception it met not very cordial, and consequently it remained unfinished. The beautiful episode from the Caropaideia of Xenophon, Araspes and Panthea, appeared about this time, and revealed Wieland as the poet of love. In 1760 he received an appointment in his native town in connection with the law-courts. At this period he engaged in the arduous task of translating Shakespeare (8 vols. ZUr. 1762-66). , However little Wieland, whose mind had been formed after Greek, Roman, and French models, and who was constitutionally inclined to pleasant and easy trifling, was calculated to enter fully into the spirit of Shakespeare, he nevertheless was, for his time, tolerably successful, and opened up the path for his successors.
Wieland now spent much of his time a,: Warthausen, near Biberach, the estate of the count von Stadion, an accomplished and highly intellectual man, but thoroughly a man of the world, and averse to all religious enthusiasm. From the tone of the society he met here, as well as by the course of his reading, Wieland became imbued with that modern French philosophy which runs through the most of his later writings. In some of these, there is an unmistakable tendency to licentiousness, from which his personal life always remained free; in most of them, however, he has blended the Greek sensi bility to outward impressions with the French love of pleasure into a peculiar graceful philosophy of life. The first production which bears the impress of this French-Greek sensuousness, was the poetical tale Nadine, which he himself calls a creation in manner. In 1766 and 1767, Agathon, a romance in 3 .viols., made its appearance, which greatly contributed to establish Wieland's fame. His views on the subject of love Are most fully and worthily expounded in the didactic poem Masarion (1768), a work of singular grace and harmony of treatment, which he himself called a philosophy or the Graces. Wieland had, in the meanwhile (1765), married a lady of Augsburg, and accepted a call to Erfurt (1769), as professor of philosophy in the university. He ter minated what may be called the erotic period of his literary career with the Verklagter (The Impeachment of Love), wherein he, in a manner, vindicated the kind of poetry to which he had till then devoted himself.
A period of delightful leisure and undisturbed work began for Wieland when the widowed duchess Anna Amalie invited him to Weimar (1772), as tutor to her two sons, with the status of hofrath, and a salary of 1000 thalers, which was continued to him after his duties as tutor ceased. Wieland was entirely in his own place in the society of the distinguished Men (subh as Muslims and Von Einsiedel) already gathered round this court; and his genius began to soar more courageously, He wrote his vaudeville Die Wahl des Hercules (The Choice of Hercules), and the lyrical drama, Alceste (1773), which were received with great approbation. Of greater importance for German literature was the publication of the German .3Iercury, a monthly periodical, to which Wieland,
till toward the close of his life, devoted himself with the greatest earnestness, and which be made the. vehicle for disseminating his wsthetical views. On the whole, however, his criticism was neither genuine nor very deep, and suffered from that conventional nar rowness which was then dominant in France. His letters on his Alceste in the Mercury (Sept., 1773) contains sufficient traces of this tendency, at which Goethe and Herder were so much offended. The former wrote in relation to it the satire Gotten Heiden, and 1Vieland (Gods, Heroes, and Wieland). Wieland answered the attack with pleasantry and with his characteristic good nature. Shortly afterward, Goethe himself joined the circle at Weimar, the soul of which was the duchess-mother, Anna Amalie. W ieland's literary powers developed themselves here more and more; and for more than 20 years, almost nothing of any importance occurred, either in the political or literary world, in which :le did not take a more or less active part. His literary productiveness showed itself chiefly in the Geschichte der Abderiten (History of the Abderites, 1773), a charm ing work, depicting the follies of small communities, in which the muse of Wisdom is disguised under the garb of the Satyr. This was followed by a series of tales and stories, partly imitations of foreign originals, and partly of his own invention. Oberon, a romantic heroic poem, the most perfect and enduring of his greater works, appeared 1780 (last ed. Leio. 1853). It was followed by the translation of Horace (Letters, 1782; Satires, 1786) and of Lucian (1788). Wieland pronounced the Epistles of Horace with the commentaries to be those of his works on which he put the greatest value. He has given us a complete sketch of his conception of the Greek world in the Aristippe (1800). A collected edition of Wieland's works up to 1802, in 36 vols., with 6 supplementary vols. in large quarto, and large and small octavo (new edition with the poet's life, 53 vols., 1828; 36 vols., 1839), was got up by the bookseller Glischen in Leipsic. From the proceeds, Wieland was enabled to buy the estate of OsmannstlIcit, near Weimar. From 1798 to 1803, he lived here in the circle of his numerous family (his wife, in the course of 20 years, had brought him 14 children), and devoted the geatest part of his time to literary labors, among which his Attic Inseam (1796-1804) and the 1l eve Attic Museum (1805-9) were not the least. In these publications, he strove to make his countrymen familiar with Greek poetry, philosophy, and rhetoric. In 1803 he sold his estate, and returned to Weimar, where he very soon became intimate with Schiller. Here he lived to see the day of the battle of Jena, the death of the duchess Amalie, and also of Herder and Schiller. The marks of honor which he received from Alexander and Napoleon, and his admission to the French " Institut," helped to alleviate his many griefs, among which one of the greatest was the death of his wife, 1801, with whom he had lived for so many years in great happiness. His own death took place Jan. 20, 1813.
Wieland had neither the spirit of a reformer like Klopstock and Lessing, nor did be attain the poetical greatness of Goethe or Schiller; nevertheless, he did great service to German literature, which has not always been sufficiently recognized. He gave to German poetry, as it was rising into true national importance. the still wanting grace and harmony of expression and versification, in which respect Goethe learned much from him. The poetic handling of chivalry was an entirely new creation of his, and thus the school of romantic poetry is indebted to him for its origin. He also intro duced poetical materials from England, France, Spain, and Italy, which were not without influence. In all his appropriations Wieland exercised that fine discernment which seizes upon what is universally human, so that he nowhere appears as a blind imitator. His criticism, too, with all its shallowness, contributed much to the diffusion of general culture.—Compare, besides Gruber's Biographie Wieland's (4 vols., Leip. 1827; vols. 50-53 of the Works), Wieland's ausgewilhltet Briefs (4 vols., &Ir. 1815), Aims wahl denkuardiger Briefs (2 vole., Wien, 1815), and Briefe an Sophie Laroche (Berl. 1820); also Lobell's a F. 'Wieland (1858).