Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg

Playwright and poet, born in Tondern, Silesia. After military posts in the service of Denmark, he became Danish consul in Lübeck (1775–83). Early anacreontic poems such as Tändeleyen (1756) were followed by the tragic drama Ugolino (1768), which marked the start of the Shakespeare-influenced movement "Sturm und Drang', a cult of turbulent emotion and genius. Other works in this genre include Kriegslieder eines königlich dänischen Grenadiers (1762) and Gedicht eines Skalden (1766, encouraging a neo-bardic trend). In his literary theory he championed originality and the forceful, non-cerebral ‘Kraftmensch’ against French classicism, as seen in the ardently pro-Shakespeare Briefe über Merkwürdigkeiten der Literatur (1766–7).

Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (1737-1823), German poet and critic, was born at Tondern in Schleswig on the 3rd of January 1737.

After studying law at Jena he entered the Danish military service and took part in the Russian campaign of 1762.

In the course of his long life Gerstenberg passed through many phases of his nation's literature. He translated Beaumont and Fletcher's Maids Tragedy (1767), and helped to usher in the Sturm und Drang period with a gruesome but powerful tragedy, Ugolino (1768). But he did perhaps even better service to the new literary movement with his Briefe Uber Merkwürdigkeiten der Literatur (1766-1770), in which the critical principles of the Sturm und Drang, and especially its enthusiasm for Shakespeare, were first definitely formulated.

His Vermischte Schriften appeared in 3 vols.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.