Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb (1724–1803)

German poet. His religious epic Der Messias/The Messiah (1748–73) and Oden/Odes (1771) anticipated Romanticism. Written in hexameters, Der Messias is a very uneven poem, some parts of it being imbued with deep feeling and fervour, while others are flat and trivial.

Klopstock was born in Quedlinburg and studied theology at Jena and Leipzig, where he anonymously published the first three cantos of Der Messias in Bremer Beiträge 1748. They were received with great enthusiasm, and Klopstock was hailed as the deliverer of German literature from the formalism of Johann Gottsched and mere imitation of French works. Invited by Frederick V of Denmark, he lived in Copenhagen 1751–70 and was given an annuity to complete Der Messias. In 1775 he spent a year at the court of the margrave of Baden at Karlsruhe, and received a pension with which he retired to Hamburg for the rest of his life.

His plays, mainly about German history, include Der Tod Adams 1757, Salomo 1764, Die Hermannsschlacht 1769, Hermann und die Fürsten 1784, and Hermanns Tod 1787. His non-fiction concerning literature, philology, and the history of German poetry includes Die Gelehrtenrepublik 1774, Fragmente über Sprache und Dichtkunst 1779, and Grammatische Gespräche 1794.