Georg (or Jörg) Wickram (c.1505 – before 1562) was a German

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

Life

Wickram was born at Colmar in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

; the exact date of his birth and death are unknown. He founded a

Meistersinger A (German for "master singer") was a member of a German guild for lyric poetry, composition and unaccompanied art song of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part. Guilds The ' ...

school in Colmar in 1549, and has left a number of Meistersingerlieder. He passed the latter part of his life until his death as town clerk of Burkheim on the Rhine. Wickram was a many-sided writer. He edited Albrecht von Halberstadt's

Middle High German Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...

version of

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...

'' (1545), and in 1555 he published ''Das Rollwagenbuchlein'', one of the best of the many German collections of tales and anecdotes which appeared in the 16th century. The title of the book implies its object, namely, to supply reading for the traveller in the "Rollwagen" or diligences. As a dramatist, Wickram wrote ''Fastnachtsspiele'' (''Das Narrengiessen'', 1537; ''Der treue Eckart'', 1538) and two dramas on biblical subjects, ''Der verlorene Sohn'' (1540) and ''Tobias'' (1551). A moralizing poem, ''Der irrereitende Pilger'' (1556), is half-satiric, half-didactic. It is, however, as a novelist that Wickram has left the deepest mark on his time, his chief romances being ''Ritter Galmy aus Schottland'' (1539), ''Gabriotto und Reinhard'' (1554), ''Der Knabenspiegel'' (1554), ''Von guten und bösen Nachbarn'' (1556) and ''Der Goldfaden'' (1557). These may be regarded as the earliest attempts in German literature to create that modern type of middle-class fiction which ultimately took the place of the decadent medieval

chivalric romance As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalri ...

. Wickram's works have been edited by: *J Bolte and W Scheel for the ''Stuttgart Literarischer Verein'' (vols, 222, 223, 229, 230, 1900–1903) *''Der Ritter Galmy'' was republished by

Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué (); (12 February 1777 – 23 January 1843) was a German writer of the Romantic style. Biography He was born at Brandenburg an der Havel, of a family of French Huguenot origin, as evidenced in ...

in 1806 *''Der Goldfaden'' by Klemens Brentano in 1809 *the ''Rollwagenbuchlein'' was edited by

Hermann Kurz Hermann Kurz (30 November 1813 – 10 October 1873) was a German poet and novelist. He was born at Reutlingen. Having studied at the theological seminary at Maulbronn and at the University of Tübingen, he became assistant pastor at Ehningen. H ...

in 1865, and there is also a reprint of it in ''Reclam's Universalbibliothek'' See A Stober, ''J Wickram'' (1866);

Wilhelm Scherer Wilhelm Scherer (26 April 18416 August 1886) was a German philologist and historian of literature. He was known as a positivist because he based much of his work on "hypotheses on detailed historical research, and rooted every literary phenomeno ...

, ''Die Anfange des deutschen Prosaromans'' (1897).

References

External links

* * 1505 births 1560 deaths People from Colmar 16th-century German dramatists and playwrights 16th-century German novelists Alsatian-German people German male poets German male novelists 16th-century German poets 16th-century German male writers 16th-century male writers {{Germany-writer-stub