The Abderites

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The Abderites. A very likely story by Hofrath Wieland is a satirical novel by Christoph Martin Wieland , which was published inserial form inthe magazine Der Teutsche Merkur in the years 1774–1780.

Even contemporaries of Wieland expressed the opinion that he was describing the conditions in his hometown of Biberach an der Riss . It is possible that Wieland had some characters of the imperial city in his mind's eye, but in this book he also depicts human behavior that can be found among people at all times in all places. Formally, the novel is based on the stories from ancient comedy poets and satirists from Abdera , which was notorious as Schilda in classic Hellas .

The novel appeared in the Teutsche Merkur (1774–1780) published by Wieland and repeatedly suggested works by other artists, including August von Kotzebue , Friedrich Dürrenmatt , Richard Strauss , and Peter Ustinov .

Abderit is a name for a shield citizen, i.e. a naive, simple-minded person. The term is derived from the ancient city of Abdera, which was the home of such important men as Democritus and Protagoras , but nevertheless gained the reputation of Schilda among the Hellenes.

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