Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariä
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariä, born on May 1, 1726, in Frankenhausen, Thuringia, was a notable German poet, educator, and translator. He began his education in jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig and later transferred to the University of Göttingen, where he completed his studies. In 1748, he took on the role of yardmaster and teacher at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig, overseeing its printing and publishing operations, which supported an orphanage. Zachariä's literary career gained momentum in his teens under the influence of prominent figures like Johann Christoph Gottsched, although he eventually aligned with a group of Bremen writers who sought greater creative freedom. His most famous work, "Der Renommiste," published in 1744, humorously critiques student life and has been widely recognized and imitated over the centuries. Additionally, he made contributions to serious poetry and music, including a notable translation of John Milton's "Paradise Lost." Zachariä continued to teach until his retirement in 1774 and passed away on January 30, 1777, in Braunschweig. His legacy primarily resides in his satirical poetry and his influence in the literary world of the 18th century.
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Subject Terms
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariä
Musician
- Born: May 1, 1726
- Birthplace: Frankenhausen, Thuringia (now in Germany)
- Died: January 30, 1777
- Place of death: Braunschweig, Germany
Biography
Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariä was born on May 1, 1726, in Frankenhausen, Thuringia (now Germany), the third child of Friedrich Sigisimund Zachariä, the chamber secretary of a local prince. He attended a national grade school in Franconia and in 1743 began studying jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig. Zachariä transferred to the University of Göttingen in 1747, where he completed his studies, and the following year he was hired as yardmaster and teacher at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. In this position, Zachariä supervised the institution’s printing and publishing houses and its bookshop, the proceeds of which helped finance an orphanage. In 1761, Zachariä became a full professor of poetry, and in 1768 he began publishing a new newspaper in Braunschweig.
Zachariä began writing poetry in his teens. He initially was influenced by Johann Christoph Gottsched, a German critic, poet, and playwright who wrote the first German-language treatise on the art of poetry, as well as scholarly works on the development and purification of the German language. However, when Gottsched fell out of favor in the mid-1740’s, Zachariä switched allegiance to a group of writers from Bremen, who revolted against Gottsched’s strict standards. The group included some of Germany’s most important eighteenth century poets, dramatists, novelists, and critics, including Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. These writers rejected Gottsched’s restrictive, neoclassical literary principles and demanded room for the play of genius and inspiration.
In 1744, Zachariä published his best-known work, “Der Renommiste” (the braggart), in a literary journal, an amusing mock-heroic poem written in rhyming couplets that satirized student life in the university towns of Leipzig and Jena. “Der Renommiste” was included with other satirical epic poems, including “Das Schnupftuch” and “Phaeton,” in Scherzhafte Epishce Poesien nebst einigen Oden und Liedern (1754). “Der Renommiste” also was frequently reprinted throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries and was widely imitated.
Zachariä wrote a number of serious poems that were published in Die Tageszeiten: Ein Gedict, in vier Büchern (1756) and Poetische Schriften (1763- 1765). He achieved some small measure of renown as a composer, particularly for his musical play, Die Pilgrime auf Golgatha: Ein musikalisches Drama. He also published an important German translation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), as well as translations of other works. However, it is on the strength of his popular satirical poem, “Der Renommiste,” written when he was a teenager, that Zachariä’s reputation primarily rests.
Zachariä retired from the Collegium Carolinum in 1774 and received a pension until the end of his life. He died on January 30, 1777, in Braunschweig.