Johann Beer
Johann Beer was a notable figure from Upper Austria, born on February 28, 1655, in the village of Sankt Georgen. He was the seventh child of Wolfgang and Susanna Beer, who had a large family, many of whom did not survive childhood. Beer emerged as a prolific author, composer, and musician, with a legacy of over twenty novels and significant contributions to music in the courts of German nobility. His early education was shaped by Benedictine monks at Kloster Lambach, where he began his musical training at a young age. Later, he moved to Regensburg, a refuge for Austrian Protestants, where he honed his narrative talents in a Protestant academy.
Throughout his career, Beer became known for his satirical takes on popular genres of his time, including chivalric novels and picaresque adventures that highlighted the lives of young protagonists. His works often included critiques of academia and societal norms, particularly regarding the influence of women. In 1679, he married Rosina Bremer, with whom he had eleven children. Beer served as the court concertmaster for Duke Johann Adolf of Saxe-Weissenfels and continued his artistic pursuits until his untimely death in 1700 due to a shooting accident. His contributions have left a mark on the German baroque literary scene, reflecting both his personal experiences and the cultural dynamics of his era.
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Johann Beer
Writer
- Born: February 28, 1655
- Birthplace: Sankt Georgen, Attergau, Austria
- Died: August 6, 1700
- Place of death: Weissenfels, Germany
Biography
Johann Beer was born in the small mountain village of Sankt Georgen, in the region of Attergau in Upper Austria, on February 28, 1655. Beer’s father, Wolfgang Beer, was an innkeeper, and his mother, Susanna Beer, had fifteen children, many of whom died in childhood. Johann Beer, their seventh child, grew up to be the author of more than twenty novels as well as a musician and composer in the courts of German nobility. While his family was Protestant in a largely Catholic region, Beer received his earliest education from Benedictine monks at the Kloster Lambach monastery, where he began musical training at the age of seven. He attended various Austrian schools and continued to study music until 1670, when he moved to join his family in the city of Regensburg in southern Germany, which was a haven for Austrian Protestants.
Beer enrolled at the Gymnasium Poeticum in Regensburg, a Protestant academy known for excellence in both musical and rhetorical training. At the Gymnasium, Beer began his creative career by performing in the church choir and by composing songs and poems to commemorate special occasions. His skills as a performer earned for him a scholarship to a prominent boarding school. There, Beer and his school friends entertained themselves in the dormitory by telling each other adventure stories of knights and castles. These late- night storytelling sessions helped Beer develop the narrative skills that would make him one of the finest writers of the German baroque period. In 1676, Beer began a course of study in theology at the University of Leipzig. His tenure there was brief, and he left the University in October of that year to play in the orchestra of the court of Duke August of Saxe-Weissenfels. His brief stay at the university would figure in his novels, though, as satire of the manners and habits of academia became a recurrent theme in his prose.
The courtly life that Beer joined after leaving academia, however, was ripe for his satiric treatment as well. Beer wrote a series of books that spoofed a popular genre of his day, the chivalric novel. The title of a book written in 1677 exhibits some of his mocking disdain for the popular view of courtly life: Der abentheuerliche, wunderbare, und unerhörte Ritter Hopffen-Sack von der Speck-Seiten (the adventurous, marvelous, and unprecedented Knight Hop-Sack of the Rump). In addition to his satires of chivalric novels, Beer’s early novels included several picaresque adventures, each of which recounted the lives and travels of young protagonists of humble origins. Beer dabbled in other genres, including political novels, a form in which young men are educated by mentors in the practicalities of the emerging world of pragmatic enlightenment and in which they eschew the abstract and superstitious emphases of earlier times. Beer also wrote a series of satirical works that criticized the influence of women in the lives of men. These novels were apparently popular in their day but are criticized by modern scholars.
Beer married Rosina Bremer in 1679. Like Beer, Bremer was the child of an innkeeper. Together they had eleven children. Beer served in the court of Duke Johann Adolf of Saxe-Weissenfels, the son and successor of Duke August. Beer was named the court concertmaster in 1685, a job that required him to tell tales and write poetry in addition to performing music. He continued to write novels as well as books on music until his death in 1700 from injuries sustained by the accidental discharge of a musket at a court shooting match.