Early life Klopstock was born on 2 July 1724 at
Quedlinburg, the eldest son of a lawyer. Both in his birthplace and on the estate of
Friedeburg on the
Saale, which his father later rented, he spent a happy childhood. Having been given more attention to his physical than to his mental development, he grew up strong and healthy and was considered an excellent horseman. In his thirteenth year, he returned to Quedlinburg and attended the
gymnasium there, and in 1739 went on to the famous classical school named
Schulpforta. Here he soon became adept in Greek and Latin versification, and wrote some meritorious idylls and odes in German. His original intention of making
Henry the Fowler the hero of an epic was abandoned in favor of a religious epic, under the influence of
Milton's
Paradise Lost, with which he became acquainted through
Bodmer's translation.
Depression and Messias Klopstock now relapsed into
melancholy; new ideas failed him, and his poetry became more introspective. He continued to live and work in Copenhagen, however, and next, following
Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg, turned his attention to northern mythology, which in his view should replace classical subjects in a new school of German poetry. In 1770, when
King Christian VII dismissed Count Bernstorff from office, he retired with the latter to
Hamburg but retained his pension, together with the rank of councillor of legation. In 1773 were published the last five cantos of the
Messias. In the following year he published a scheme for the regeneration of German letters,
Die Gelehrtenrepublik (1774). In 1775 he traveled south, and making the acquaintance of
Goethe on the way, spent a year at the court of the
Margrave of
Baden at
Karlsruhe. Thence, in 1776, with the title of
Hofrath and a pension from the Margrave, which he retained along with that from the king of Denmark, he returned to Hamburg where he spent the remainder of his life.
Last years His latter years he passed, as had always been his inclination, in retirement, only occasionally relieved by socializing with his most intimate friends, occupied in
philological studies and taking scant interest in the new developments in German literature. However, he was enthusiastic about the
American War of Independence and the
French Revolution. The
French Republic sent him a diploma of honorary citizenship; but, horrified at the terrible scenes the Revolution had enacted in the name of liberty, he returned it. At the age of 67 he undertook a second marriage, to Johanna Elisabeth von Winthem, a widow and a niece of his late wife, who for many years had been one of his most intimate friends. He died in Hamburg on 14 March 1803, mourned throughout Germany, and was buried with great ceremony next to his first wife in the churchyard of the village of
Ottensen. ==Works==