KLOPSTOCK, FRIEDRICH GOTTLIEB, was born in 1724, of respectable Vases:its, at Quedlinburg, at the gymuatium of which place he received his early tuition. In his sixteenth year he went to the school at Naumburg, where his poetical character was first developed. Here he perfected himself in the ancient languages, and even at this early age resolved to compose a long epic poem, though he had not yet made up his mind as to the subject. At first he thought of making the emperor Henry I , commonly called 'the Fowler,' the hero of his work, and some odes by him on this sovereign show that he was then uppermost in his mind. In 1745 he atudied theology at Jena, where he seems to have decided on making the Redeemer the subject of his epic, for it was then that he projected the first canto of his Messiah,' and in 1748 the first three cantos appeared. The • excitement created by this poem was surprising; some regarded him as an ectype of the ancient prophets, while others deemed his poetical treatmeut of so sacred a subject profane and presumptuous.
After the publication of the first portion of his poem Klopstock went to Langensalza to superintend the education of the children of a relation named Weiss, with whose daughter he fell in love, but without a return of his passion. This lady was the 'Fanny' of his odes. Bodmer, the Swiss poet, invited him to Switzerland, where his poem had made a great impression. In Switzerland he was received with a reverence that bordered on adoration (1750). While in that country his mind seems to have taken a patriotic tendency : the ancient Hermann (the Arminius of Tacitus) became his favourite hero, whose deeds he afterwards celebrated in some dramatic works. Iu Denmark the minister Bernstorff had become acquainted with the three cantos of the Messiah,' and Klopstock was offered a pension of 400 dollars on condition of coming to Copenhagen, and there finishing his poem. He set off in 1751, travelled through Brunswick and Hamburg, and at the latter place formed an intimacy with Margaretha Moller, daughter of a respectable merchant. At Copenhagen he was received by Bernstorff with the greatest respect, and introduced to the king, Frederick V., whom he accompanied on his travels. In
1754 he went to Hamburg, and there married his beloved Margaretha, who in 1758 died in childbcd. From 1759 to 1763 he lived alter nately in Brunswick, Quedlinburg, and Blankcnburg, but afterwards returned to Copenhagen. lie composed in 1764 his drama Hermanns sehlacht' (the battle of Arminius), the subject of which is the defeat of the Roman general Varna by the ancient Germans, and which is scarcely so much a drama, as a lyric poem in a dramatic form. His other dramas are of a similar character. In 1771 he left Copenhagen and settled at Hamburg, where he completed his 'Messiah,' and in 1792 married a second wife. He died in 1803.
Though Klopstock is still read and admired as a classic author, that adoration which was paid him has long since evaporated, and many have questioned whether he was a poet at all in the genuine sense of the word. Both in his ' Messiah' and his odes he is dignified and sublime, but his rhapsodical manner contrasts strangely with the pedantry which is always apparent. Goethe, in his conversations with Eckermann, expressed his opinion that German literature was greatly indebted to Klopstock, who was in advance of his times, but that the times had since advanced beyond Klopstock. The young Hardenberg (who wrote under the name of Novalis ') has happily said that Klopstock's works always resemble translations from some unknown poet, done by a clever but unpoetical philologist. Notwith standing the grandeur of his 'Messiah,' it is exceedingly tedious to read; and even at the time of Klopstock's greatest popularity this seems to have been felt, for Leasing (his contemporary) observes, in an epigram, that everybody praises Klopstock, but few read him. His odes are valued by his own countrymen more than hie epic, and some are truly sublime ; but the construction of the language is so singular, and the connection of the thoughts so often non-apparent, that these odes are reckoned among the most difficult in the language.