Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Wieland, Christoph Martin

WIELAND, CHRISTOPH MARTIN, a German poet; born in Oberholzheim, Germany, Sept. 5, 1733; was educated at the University of Tübingen; appointed Professor of Philosophy in 1769 at Erfurt; and three years afterward went to Weimar as teacher to the sons of Duchess Anna Amalie. Here, or in the immediate neighborhood, he resided till his death, being a member of the circle to which Goethe, Schiller, and Herder belonged. The early period of his literary life was devoted to pietistic or at least serious poetry such as “The Nature of Things” (1752); “Twelve Moral Letters in Verse Anti-Ovid” (1752); “The Trial of Abraham's Faith” (1753); in the second period he produced the romances “Agathon” (1766); and “Don Sylvio de Rosalva” (1764); the poem “Musarion” (1768); and a prose translation of Shakespeare (8 vols. 1762-1766); while in the third and ripest period were written the romantic epic of “Oberon” (1781); “History of the Abderites” (1784); “The Republic of Fools” (1786); “The Secret History of Peregrinus Proteus” (1791); etc. He also published translations of Horace, Lucian, and the “Letters of Cicero.” He died in Weimar, Germany, Jan. 20, 1813.