KLOPSTOCK, FRIEDRICH GOTTLIEB (1724-1503). A German poet of great fame in the latter half of the eighteenth century, now hardly read or readable. lie was horn in Qned linburg, July 2, 1724, and died in Hamburg, 7.11arch 14, 1803. Educated at Quedlinburg and the famous school at Sehulpforta, Klopstock went in 1745 to .Jena to study theology, but left in 1746 for Leipzig. where he made the acquaintance of Gellert. Going then as private tutor to Lan gen.salza, in 17-18 he puhlished the first three cantos of Der llessias, intended to lie a Miltonie poem, and so won the attention of Widmer, the translator of Milton, who invited him in 1750 to Zurich, whence he went in 1751 to Copenhagen by invitation of the Danish King. There lie emu Ideted the J/PRSias; but political changes brought him lack to Germany in 1771, and he remained there, chiefly in Hamburg, till his death. Klop stock wrote also pietistic odes, an artificial Art of Poetry (Die Gelehrtenrepublik, 1744) ; Bar 'Bele, antiquated in patriotism and obsolete in mythology, interspersed with unaetable dramas of clumsy savagery (//ermannsschtarbt, 1769; Hermann and die Fiirsten, 1784: and //•rnionns Tod. 1787), all sentimental and overwrought.
Though Klopstoek's contributions to German thought and poetry were small. his enrich ment, of the poetic vocabulary and his at tention to prosody were of great service to the poets that immediately followed Idin. Klop stock's Works were first collected in twelve vol (Leipzig, 179S-1817). There is an Eng lish translation of the .I/essias that does fair tice to the nebulous earnestness of the original. Consult : Muncker, Priodrich Gottlieb K/opstook, GeRehiChte Mines Li •liens and Schriften ed., Berlin. 1900) ; Lyon. k/opstocks •erhattnis zu Goethe (Leipzig. 1879) : and T.ap penberg. Brick ran and an klopstoek (Bruns wick, 1867).