The New International Encyclopædia/Pyra, Immanuel Jakob

PYRA, pẽ'rȧ, (1715-44). A German poet. He was born in Kottbus, studied theology at Halle, where he joined Lange's Dichterbund, and with Lange lived at Laublingen. The two poets published Freundschaftliche Lieder (1746), which, with their delight in friendship and their unrhymed verse, foretell Klopstock. Pyra boldly, and rather pedantically, attacked Gottsched in 1736 with Erweis dass die Gottschedianische Sekte den Geschmack verderbe (1743), and his premature death was partly due to the bitter personalities with which the attack was returned. Consult Wanick, Immanuel Pyra (Leipzig, 1882).