Johann Christian Günther

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Johann Christian Günther
Memorial stone in Striegau
Memorial plaque in Striegau
Memorial plaque in Jauer
Commemorative plaque on Haus Schlesien Koenigswinter

Johann Christian Günther (born April 8, 1695 in Striegau / Silesia , † March 15, 1723 in Jena ) was a German poet .

Life

The son of a doctor attended grammar school in Schweidnitz from 1710 to 1715 , where his youth drama "Theodosio's repentant jealousy" was performed. He became engaged to Magdalena Eleonore Jachmann, the "Leonore" of his later poems.

In 1715, following his father's request, he began studying medicine in Wittenberg . It came to a falling out with the father, since the latter strictly rejected his intention to earn a living as a poet. In 1716 Günther was crowned Poeta laureatus Caesareus . As a result of the associated financial expenses, he ended up in debt prison in 1717.

In the same year 1717 he went to the University of Leipzig and enrolled there. He was promoted by the writer and historian Johann Burckhardt Mencke , who was convinced of his great talent, but who did not succeed in getting him a position as court poet of Augustus the Strong in Dresden in 1719 . An attempt to settle down as a doctor in Kreuzburg in Silesia in 1720 failed, as did the effort to reconcile with his father. As a result, Johann Christian Günther lived as a guest with the families of various college friends. In 1723, already ill, he returned to Jena, where the 27-year-old died of tuberculosis .

meaning

Günther is considered the most important German poet of the early 18th century. Formally assigned to the Baroque era, it can be described as a forerunner of the Enlightenment due to the strong inner movement and pronounced individual character of its literature . This follows, among other things, from the fact that Günther must have come into contact with writings by Christian Thomasius , Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff . This did not change his awareness of tradition, but those philosophers shaped his view of authority, doctrine and religion.

He became famous in his time through his ode to the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718. It was not until a year after his death that Johann Christian Günthers from Silesia appeared, some never-before-printed, some already published, German and Latin poems that established his fame. The first complete edition of his works from 1742 saw six editions; From 1930 to 1936 Wilhelm Krämer published a historical and critical complete edition. Goethe judged in his work Poetry and Truth : "A decisive talent, gifted with sensuality, imagination, memory, the gift of grasping and visualizing, fruitful in the highest degree, rhythmically comfortable, witty, witty and taught many times."

The Encyclopædia Britannica calls Günther "one of the most important German lyric poets of the period between the Middle Ages and the early Goethe."

expenditure

  • Poems by Johann Christian Günther . Edited by Berthold Litzmann . Reclam, Leipzig 1897; again around 1910
  • Complete Works. Historical-critical complete edition . Edited by Wilhelm Krämer. Leipzig 1930 ff. Library of the Stuttgart Literary Association.
  • Johann Christian Günther poems and student songs , ed. by Hans Marquardt and Horst Wandrey, Leipzig 1962 (below)
  • Silesian poetry of the baroque period. From MAv Löwenstern to J.Ch. Günther. Edited by Leopold Brachmann and Paul Alfred Kleinert , text selection by Günther, Vienna / Berlin 1994, p. 52 ff.
  • Works . Edited by Reiner Bölhoff and Conrad Wiedemann . Library of the early modern period. Second section: Literature in the Baroque Age, 10. Deutscher Klassiker Verlag , Frankfurt 1998. Library of German Classics, 153. ISBN 3618665202 and ISBN 3618665253 With bibliography.
  • Text-critical work edition. 4 volumes; Texts and source documentation. Edition Niemeyer. Edited by Reiner Bölhoff. de Gruyter , Berlin 2014 ISBN 9783110295207 and other ISBNs.

bibliography

  • Reiner Bölhoff: Johann Christian Günther 1695 - 1975. Literature and Life NF, 19. Böhlau, Cologne 1980–1983. At the same time Diss. Phil. Albert Ludwig University , Freiburg 1978
  1. Annotated bibliography ISBN 3412035807
  2. List of publications ISBN 3412044822
  3. Reception and research history ISBN 3412050814

Literature (selection)

  • Max Kalbeck , New Contributions to the Biography of the Poet Johann Christian Günther, together with an appendix containing the most important handwritten Inedita of the Wroclaw City Library , ed. by Max Kalbeck. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1879 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )
  • Ulrich Konrad , Matthias Pape, Johann Christian Günther in the tradition of Protestant church literature . In: Journal for German Philology, Volume 100 (1981), No. 4, pp. 504-527
  • Johann Christian Günther. Text + criticism , 74/75. Edition Text + Criticism, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-88377-107-4
  • Laura Bignotti: Johann Christian Günther's sacred poetry. "You must draw your Saythchor to David's harp" . Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8288-2199-6
  • Henning Boëtius : Beauty of the wilderness . btb, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-442-72830-4 (biographical novel)
  • Helga Bütler-Schön: Understanding of poetry and self-portrayal in Johann Christian Günther. Studies of his commissioned poems, satires and lamentations. (= Studies in German, English and comparative literature; 99). Bouvier, Bonn 1981 ISBN 3-416-01577-0
  • Gerhard Dünnhaupt : Johann Christian Günther (1695–1723) . In: Personal bibliographies on Baroque prints . Volume 3. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1991 ISBN 3-7772-9105-6 , pp. 1913-1931 (list of works and literature)
  • Robert Eitner:  Johann Christian Günther . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 170-173.
  • Leopold Federmair: The Passions of the Soul Johann Christian Günther. An attempt over failure. (= Stuttgart theses on German studies; 215 / Salzburg contributions; 16). Heinz, Stuttgart 1989 ISBN 3-88099-219-3
  • Eike Fuhrmann:  Günther, Johann Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , pp. 269-71 ( digitized version ).
  • Adalbert Hoffmann: Johann Christian Günther Bibliography. Appendix: a satire against Günther and their prelude published for the first time. Breslau 1929. Reprint: Olms, Hildesheim 1965
  • Wilhelm Krämer: The life of the Silesian poet Johann Christian Günther 1695–1723. With sources and comments on the life and work of the poet and his contemporaries. 2nd Edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-924391-7
  • Ursula Regener: Silent songs? On the motif and genre historical situation of Johann Christian Günther's “Verliebten Gedichten”. (= Sources and research on the linguistic and cultural history of the Germanic peoples; 218; NF 94). De Gruyter, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-11-012128-X
  • Jens Stüben (Ed.): Johann Christian Günther (1695–1723). Oldenburg Symposium on the 300th birthday of the poet . (= Writings of the Federal Institute for East German Culture and History, 10). Oldenbourg, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-486-56253-3
  • Heinz Grothe : Johann Christian Günther 1695 - 1723, in: We don't want to be forgotten. Essays on little-read great German poets. Gauverlag, Bayreuth 1939, pp. 13-22
  • [Entry] Johann Christian Günther. In: " Kindlers Literatur Lexikon ". Edited by Heinz Ludwig Arnold . 3rd, completely revised edition. 18 vol. Stuttgart: Metzler 2009, vol. 6, pp. 726–727 [biogram, work article on "Das lyrische Werk" by Enst Peter Fischer]. ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Christian Günther  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Johann Christian Günther  - Quotes
Wikisource: Johann Christian Günther  - Sources and full texts

notes

  1. ↑ Reading edition , a chronological selection based on the poet's life
  2. ↑ This so-called historical-critical edition can hardly be called that. Among other things, the orthography was normalized. Frequent new editions, also in a selection and in illustrated form, e.g. B. as poems and student songs . Reclam, Leipzig 1960, etc.
  3. ↑ This edition preserves the original orthography and endeavors to restore it in accordance with a historical-critical method if manuscripts are missing. Typographical characteristics of the texts are normalized here as well. The baroque spelling of the umlauts has been preserved.
  4. ↑ volumes arranged chronologically. Each volume with an additional volume "Evidence and Explanations"
personal data
SURNAME Günther, Johann Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1695
PLACE OF BIRTH Striegau
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1723
Place of death Jena