Georg Rudolf Weckherlin

Georg Rudolf Weckherlin (September 151584–-13 February 1653) was a German poet born at Stuttgart. After studying law he settled at Stuttgart, and, as secretary to the Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg, was employed on diplomatic missions to France and England.

Between 1620 and 1624 he lived in England in the service of the Palatinate, and from this connection came to be employed in various positions in the English government. He was chief clerk to a succession of Secretaries of State and was especially skilled in foreign languages and cryptology. Although employed by the English crown, when civil war came in 1642, Weckherlin chose to remain in London and serve the bureaucracy that supported the Long Parliament. In 1644 he was appointed "Secretary for Foreign Tongues" in England, a position in which, on the establishment of the Commonwealth, he was followed by Milton. His son had a position in the household of Charles I's oldest son Prince Charles and went into exile with the royalists. He did not return to England until 1660 after the death of his father.

Weckherlin was the most distinguished of the circle of South German poets who prepared the way for the Renaissance movement associated in Germany with Martin Opitz. Two volumes of his "Oden und Gesänge" appeared in 1618 and 1619; his collected "Geistliche und weltliche Gedichte" in 1641. His models were the poets of the French Pleiade, and with his psalms, odes and sonnets he broke new ground for the German lyric. An epic poem on the death of Gustavus Adolphus, in alexandrines, seems to have won most favor with his contemporaries.

References

Weckherlin's "Gedichte" ("Poems") have been edited by H. Fischer for the "Stuttgarter Literarischer Verein" (vols. cxcix.-cc., 1894-1895). Selections were published by W. Müller (1823) and Karl Goedeke (1873).

*1911