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 &ldquo;The Nature of Things&rdquo; (1752); &ldquo;Twelve Moral Letters in Verse Anti-Ovid&rdquo; (1752); &ldquo;The Trial of Abraham's Faith&rdquo; (1753); in the second period he produced the romances &ldquo;Agathon&rdquo; (1766); and &ldquo;Don Sylvio de Rosalva&rdquo; (1764); the poem &ldquo;Musarion&rdquo;

(1768); and a prose translation of Shakespeare (8 vols. 1762-1766); while in the third and ripest period were written the romantic epic of &ldquo;Oberon&rdquo; (1781); &ldquo;History of the Abderites&rdquo; (1784); &ldquo;The Republic of Fools&rdquo; (1786); &ldquo;The Secret History of Peregrinus Proteus&rdquo; (1791); etc. He also published translations of Horace, Lucian, and the &ldquo;Letters of Cicero.&rdquo; He died in Weimar, Germany, Jan. 20, 1813.