Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau

Hofmannswaldau, Christian Hofmann von 

Born Dec. 25, 1617, in Breslau; died there Apr. 18, 1679. German poet.

Hofmannswaldau was a representative of Marinism in German literature and headed the so-called second Silesian school of poets. After the fashion of precious literature he carried poetic artificiality and mock gallantry to the extreme. His epigrams, madrigals, rondeaux, and songs are marked by stylistic bombast, affectation, and floridity. He was the first to write in German a collection modeled on Ovid’s Heroides (Epistles of the Heroines) entitled Epistles of the Heroes (1663, published from 1673 to 1680). Frivolous hedonism is coupled in his verse with a sense of the frailty of all things terrestrial.

WORKS

Auserlesene Gedichte. Edited by F. P. Greve. Leipzig, 1907.

REFERENCES

Istoriia nemetskoi literatury, vol. 1. Moscow, 1962. Pages 398–400.
Purishev, B. I. Ocherki nemetskoi literatury XV-XVII vv. Moscow, 1955. Pages 339–41.
Ibel, R. Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau: Studien zur Erkenntnis deutscher Barockdichtung. Berlin, 1928.

IU. M. KAGAN