Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

KLOPSTOCK, Friedrich Gottlieb. b. Quedlinburg, 2 July 1724; d. Ottensen, near Hamburg, 14 March 1803. He was educated at Quedlinburg until winning a scholarship to the Prince’s School at Schulpforta, near Naumburg, followed by studies in philosophy and theology at the Universities of Jena (1745-46) and Leipzig (1746-48). He became a private tutor until 1750, when he accepted an invitation from the Swiss poet Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698-1783) to visit Zürich. Bodmer had translated Milton*’s Paradise Lost (Verlust des Paradieses, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1732), which had inspired Klopstock, and made him eager to meet Bodmer. After an initial period of friendship, Klopstock and Bodmer became less...