Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart was a notable German poet and musician born in 1739 in Obersontheim, Swabia. As the eldest of five children in a family steeped in education and music, he began his literary journey while attending Latin school in Nördlingen, inspired by the works of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Schubart initially pursued theology at the University of Jena but ended up at the University of Erlangen, where his lifestyle led to financial difficulties and imprisonment. After his release, he worked as a teacher and musician, marrying Helen Bähler and raising five children amidst a strained relationship.
Schubart's career included a position as music director for Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg, but conflicts with the court's religious authorities resulted in his banishment. He faced further challenges, including a ten-year imprisonment due to political satire. During this time, Schubart produced significant literary works, including a two-volume collection of poetry. Following his release, he managed a theater in Stuttgart and continued his writing, including an unfinished autobiography. He passed away in 1791, leaving behind a legacy marked by his contributions to poetry and his reflections on his tumultuous life.
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Subject Terms
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart
Poet
- Born: March 24, 1739
- Birthplace: Obersontheim, Swabia, Germany
- Died: October 10, 1791
- Place of death: Stuttgart, Germany
Biography
German poet Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart was born in 1739 in Obersontheim, Swabia, Germany, the oldest of five children in the family of teacher and musician Johann Jacob Schubart. Within a few months of his birth, his family moved to Aalen, where his father was a preceptor and music director. Schubart began attending Latin school in Nördlingen in 1753, and during that time he familiarized himself with the poems of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and began developing a national pride.
The Seven Years’ War intruded upon Schubart’s plan to study theology in Jena, so he went to the University of Erlangen in 1758 instead. There, Schubart lived frivolously and incurred debts that led to his imprisonment, and by 1760 he was forced to return to Aalen for financial and medical reasons. In Aalen, he worked as a pastor, musician, and teacher until October, 1763, when he accepted a teaching position in Geislingen. In Geislingen, he met his future wife, Helen Bähler; the two shared a strained marriage and had five children, two of whom, Ludwig and Julie, lived to become adults.
The teaching position in Geislingen was not ideal for Schubart, and he committed much time to literary pursuits, serving as a contributor to the political journal Der Neue Rechtschaffene and beginning to publish poetry. He left the teaching post in 1769 and became the music director in the court of Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg in Ludgwigsburg. However, several incidents, including Schubart’s composition of a parody of the litany, led to difficulties between Schubart and the court’s religious leaders. He was charged with adultery and banished from the court in May, 1773, but was later released upon the pleas of his wife.
His family moved back to Geislingen, and Schubart traveled through Heilbronn, Mannheim, and Munich, landing in Augsburg in 1774, where he began working on the journal Deutsche Chronik. When the journal’s offices moved to Ulm, Schubart moved there as well, and his family joined him in Ulm in 1775. He was arrested in 1777, perhaps for satirizing the Duke of Württemberg, and held without a trial for ten years. During his imprisonment he focused on poetry and mystical works and published a two-volume collection of his poetry in 1785 and 1786. King Frederick II of Prussia ordered Schubart’s release, an act for which the poet gave thanks in his hymn Friedrich der Grosse: Ein Hymnus (1786). Upon achieving his freedom, Schubart became the manager and musical director of the theater in Stuttgart. He also renewed work on Deutsche Chronik, now retitled Vaterländische Chronik, while starting his autobiography, Schubarts Leben und Gesinnungen, which he had not completed at the time of his death on October 10, 1791. The two-volume autobiography was published posthumously between 1791 and 1793.