The baroque poet and literary theorist is an innovator of German poetry. In his theoretical work of poetry “Book of the German Poeterey” Martin Opitz laid down the rules of the new German art poetry and poetic language. His thoughts influenced not only is the Baroque literature, but also the other epochs. He supplied his own theoretical elaborations of the samples in poetics, the drama and epic. His works are characterized by a didactic tone, with the aim to establish the German language and literature. In his body of work he produced his theory of poetry, previously founded and made it to the court seal. Among his literary curriculum also included the publishing activities of traditional literature such as the early Middle High German “Annolied” …
Martin Opitz was on 23 December 1597 Boleslawiec in Silesia as the son of a butcher’s born.
Opitz was raised in a Protestant family and loved a humanistic education in Boleslawiec, Wroclaw and Bytom. In 1618, he started, first in Frankfurt ado, then in Heidelberg, where he made contact with the Heidelberg circle of humanists to study law and philosophy. But the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War forced him to abort. Martin Opitz had jobs with nobles of both denominations. Initially he worked for the Calvinist Frederick V of the Palatinate. From 1620 he was employed as a tutor for Danish nobleman, whom he accompanied on her travels through Holland and Denmark. Before he returned to his homeland in 1623, he was a teacher at the Gymnasium of White Castle in Transylvania.
In 1625 Ferdinand II was crowned Martin Opitz as poet, Poet Laureate. Two years later he was knighted – as Opitz von Bober field. From 1626 he was secretary to the leader of the Counter-Renovation in Silesia from Dohna Charles Hannibal, who had to care for the will of Vienna for the recatholicization the Silesian regions. But the approach of the Swedish army led the fleeing of Dohna, and Opitz took from 1633 to a position with the Protestant Silesian Piast. 1637 he became court historian of the Polish king Vladislav IV In addition, he fulfilled diplomatic missions and the site of a royal secretary. 1629 he joined the “Fruit-bearing Society” in which strove for the improvement and recognition of the German language and literature.
The Thirty Years’ War was reflected in his “consolation in adversity poems of war” (1633) resist. In it he reveals his belief system, which sees in death the salvation from earthly life. In addition to his professional activities, Opitz was a prolific poet. Many of his works followed the didactic intention to highlight the German language as compared to other European such as the French. Still, Latin was the common written language and literature in Germany. Even Opitz summarized his early works in Latin from such as “Strenarum libellus” (1616). His literary theory aimed at a renewal of German poetry, as in his early work “Aristarchus or on the contempt of the German Language” (1617) is evident.
His most well-known and most vital theoretical work, which he wrote in just five days, was the title “Book of the German Poeterey” (1624). In it he open a poetry written in German, which governs the art poetry and poetic language in German again. In his book Martin Opitz wrote for the leap, for example language before the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, and he drew attention to the untreated word accent. The reorganization affected all literary genres. Martin Opitz saw next to the turning away from Latin into making a purified German language a prerequisite for its ultimate objective, a German national literature. He held his eyes in adjoin of European Renaissance literature. The influence of his literary theory went far beyond the Baroque style to subsequent overtime periods.
Prime examples of his literary theory, he was in the “eight books German Poematum” in 1625 and from the following works. He rehearsed in his own works, translations and adaptations of foreign works of world literature and collected countrified poetry, novel, opera, teaching poetry, epic poetry Bible, drama, and more. The poet’s own work was adapted to his didactic purpose, which he deposited in his major textbook. So he wore classic dramas of Seneca, such as “Trojan Women” (1625) and “Antigone” (1636) by Sophocles. His opera libretto, “Daphne” (1627), a transfer from Italian, Heinrich Schütz later wrote the music. It was further the first libretto in German language at all. In his body of work he produced his theory of poetry, previously founded and made it to the court seal.
Among his literary curriculum also included the publishing activities of traditional literature such as the early Middle High German “Annolied”. Opitz is “known German poetry” as the father. With his literary revival curriculum because he had really managed to get the German literature, although late tie, was in the other European national literatures. His other works contain “Teutsche Poemata and Aristarchus” (1624), “The action-songs Jeremiah” (1626), “Schäfferey From Nimfen Hercinie” (1630), “Trost poems in resistance value Whose War” (1633) “Judith” (1635), “The Psalms of David set with the French ways” (1637), “The Arcadia Gräffin from Pembrock” (1638) or “Spiritual Poemata” (1638).
Martin Opitz died on 20 Dignified 1639 of the plague in Gdansk.
