Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer (30 January 1719, in

Wurzen Wurzen () is a town in the Leipzig district, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Mulde, here crossed by two bridges, 25 km east of Leipzig, by rail N.E. of Leipzig on the main line via Riesa to Dresden. It has a cathedral dating ...

– 7 July 1783, in

Halberstadt Halberstadt ( Eastphalian: ''Halverstidde'') is a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, the capital of Harz district. Located north of the Harz mountain range, it is known for its old town center that was greatly destroyed by Allied bombi ...

) was a German

fabulist Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral ...

Biography

His father of the same name was a jurist. The younger Lichtwer studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

and

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon language, Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the Ri ...

. His chief work is to be found in the ''Vier Bücher Aesopischer Fabeln'' (Four books of fables in the manner of

Aesop Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales cre ...

; 1748). There is a collection of his ''Schriften'' (Writings; 1828) edited by Ernst Ludwig von Pott (Lichtwer's grandson) and Friedrich Cramer which contains a biography. The Austrian composer

Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...

set several of his fables in his secular canons, or a capella songs (Hob. XXVIIb).

Notes

References

* This source reports him being

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...

of Saint Mauritius which neither German Wikipedia nor ADB no
NDB
have any mention. NDB reports his date of death as 1788 rather than 1783. *

Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer (30 January 1719, in Wurzen – 7 July 1783, in Halberstadt) was a German fabulist. Biography His father of the same name was a jurist. The younger Lichtwer studied law at Leipzig and Wittenberg. His chief work is to ...

article on

German Wikipedia The German Wikipedia (german: Deutschsprachige Wikipedia) is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. Founded on March 16, 2001, it is the second-oldest Wikipedia (after the English Wikipedia), ...

(visited June 19, 2011)

External links

* 1719 births 1783 deaths German-language poets People from Wurzen Fabulists German male poets {{Germany-writer-stub