Johann Peter Uz

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Johann Peter Uz, painting by Johann Michael Shcwabeda after Georg Oswald May , 1780, Gleimhaus Halberstadt

Johann Peter Uz (born October 3, 1720 in Ansbach ; † May 12, 1796 there ) was a German poet . As the expressive talent of the circle of poets in Halle (Saale) , Uz embodied the bourgeois form of the partly courtly influenced Rococo culture .

Life

Johann Peter Uz

Study time and the way to a German anakreontics

As the son of the goldsmith and inspector of the margravial laboratory, Friedrich August Uz, who died early, the later poet studied law in Halle (Saale) from 1739 to 1743 after attending the Carolinum high school in Ansbach . Together with his college friends Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719–1803; attempt in joking songs ) and Johann Nikolaus Götz (1721–1781) he tried to establish a German rococo poem as a representative of the Halle anacreontics during this time . The model was Friedrich von Hagedorn (1708–1754; New Oden and Songs Collection ) , who worked in Hamburg, and they received further impulses from the philosophical lectures of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Georg Friedrich Meier .

The translation of the “ Oden Anacreons in Rhymeless Verses ”, which Götz published in 1746, to the annoyance of Uzen, as he did not consider it ready for printing, dates from this time . It is characteristic of this early phase to design a counter-model to Pietism in Halle and to sing about a culture of sensuality - also in a departure from the baroque fear of death. Topics are love, wine, jokes, dance and cheerful sociability. The whole person beyond reason and work ethic is looked at. The central motifs are the sheep farm ( Arcadia ) and Bacchus ( Dionysus ).

Johann Peter Uz

Profession and calling

In 1743, however, Uz had already returned to his home town of Ansbach . Financially largely independent due to the rest of his father's fortune, he lived with his mother and sister in limited circumstances. He began his legal career as a trainee lawyer at the Ansbach Judicial College. From 1748 the first employment as a judicial secretary took place, interrupted by an activity as a secretary for the Ansbach Hofrat Strebel, who was sent to Römhild as an imperial execution commissioner from 1752–1753 . There he met the lawyer Johann Peter Grötzner , who was four years his junior . They explained the intensity of their feelings for one another by believing that their family crests were identical. This friendship inspired Uz to his best songs and odes . Grötzner was also a literary connoisseur and wrote poems, of which only a few appeared in the Koburg paperback well after his death in 1821 . It was not until 1763 that Uz was given a position as assessor at the Imperial District Court of the Burggraftum in Nuremberg that was located in Ansbach. Through a correspondence mediated by Gleim , he stayed in contact with like-minded people, but Uz felt culturally isolated in the Middle Franconian province, which is also pietistic. Personal contacts still existed with Karl Ludwig von Knebel , Wilhelm Heinse , Friedrich Nicolai and Johann Gottfried Herder .

It was Gleim who anonymously published his collection of “ Lyric Poems ” , which he had carefully prepared over the years . Included are u. a. “ The Lyric Muse ”, “ A Dream ”, “ Invitation to Pleasure ” and “ The Grape Harvest ”. In 1755 a second, significantly expanded collection, " Lyrical and Other Poems ", was published. a. " Praise of Spring " and " The Shepherd " are printed.

Reorientation towards a teaching poetry

As early as 1754, Uz had renounced " courageous poetry " and made Horace his model. He translated his work into German together with the high school teacher Johann Friedrich Degen (published 1773–1775). Philosophical thoughts and moral views now move into the center of his own poems, which means that he can be seen as a forerunner of Schiller's poetry of thought . The result of the reorientation are the “Theodicee” from 1755 and the four-part didactic poem “ Attempt to be happy about art ” from 1760 . Ultimately, it is about the idea of ​​a well-designed world order beyond all earthly evils, which takes up Leibniz 's theodicy idea . After the death of his childhood friend Johann Friedrich von Cronegk , he published his work in two volumes in 1761/62, including a biography. The “ New Anspachische Gesangbuch ”, published from 1781 together with the court chaplain and general superintendent Johann Zacharias Leonhard Junkheim, was a late commissioned work . In 1768, however, he again collected all of his previous work and published it in two volumes with vignettes.

Uz also had a follow-up effect through his influence on Schiller during his time at the High Charles School . He expressed his appreciation for his poetry by placing the poet next to Hölty and other elegists in his treatise “ On naive and sentimental poetry ” . Schiller himself planned a counterpart to Uzen's philosophical poem “ Theodicee ” (1755) based on the spirit of a critical philosophy . Franz Schubert set the religious hymn "God in the Storm" to music.

Ansbach:
Uz monument in the courtyard garden,
by Carl Alexander Heideloff

In 1789 Uz was seconded as a member of the Scholarchat, which stood above the Carolinum grammar school. In 1790, in addition to his position as a full assessor at the Imperial Regional Court, he was promoted to the Burggrave Director of the Council College in Ansbach. His offices - land judge and judicial councilor - remained with him after the Frankish principalities fell to Prussia in 1791. The poet's grave is located in a crypt chapel on the Ansbach Holy Cross Cemetery (Stadtfriedhof, Benkendorffstrasse 2).

Work editions

  • Johann Peter Uz, Complete Poetic Works , ed. August Sauer, (German literary monuments of the 18th and 19th centuries in reprints 33–38); Stuttgart 1890 (reprint Nendeln 1968).
  • Ders., Letters to a friend [= Grötzner] from the years 1753–1782 , ed. August Henneberger, Leipzig 1886.

literature

bibliography

  • Johann Peter Uz: "The Shepherd." In: Karl Richter (Ed.): Enlightenment Storm and Drang. Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-007891-4 , pp. 140-149.
  • Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller; Art. Johann Peter Uz , in: ders., Man for man. Ein biographisches Lexikon , Ffm 2001, pp. 703-704.
  • Julius Meyer, Johann Peter Uz , in: Brügels Onoldina. Local history treatises for Ansbach and the surrounding area. Founded by Julius Meyer. Newly edited, supplemented and increased by Adolf Bayer. II. Issue: CVs / Mayors / District Presidents a. a. Ansbach 1955 (C. Brügel & Sohn).
  • Ernst Rohmer / Theodor Verweyen (eds.), Poet and citizen in the province. Johann Peter Uz and the Enlightenment in Ansbach , (Early Modern Times. Studies and Documents on European Literature and Culture in a European Context 42), Tübingen 1998.
  • Erich Schmidt:  Uz, Johann Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, pp. 443-449.
  • Helena Rosa Zeltner, Johann Peter Uz. From the “Lyrical Muse” to “Poetry” (Diss.), Zurich 1973.
  • Johann Peter Uz: The grape harvest . In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. Volume 16 . JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 , pp. 598-599
  • Carl Schüddekopf (ed.): Correspondence between Gleim and Uz , Tübingen 1899 (digitized version)

Web links

Wikisource: Johann Peter Uz  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Uz, Johann Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1720
PLACE OF BIRTH Ansbach
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1796
Place of death Ansbach