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Andreas Gryphius

Andreas Gryphius
Andreas Gryphius.jpg
Born Andreas Greif
(1616-10-02)2 October 1616
Großglogau (Głogów), Silesia
Died 16 July 1664(1664-07-16) (aged 47)
Großglogau, Silesia
Occupation Lyric poet
Dramatist
Nationality German
Period Baroque

Andreas Gryphius (2 October 1616 – 16 July 1664) was a German lyric poet and dramatist.

Asteroid 496 Gryphia is named in his honour.

Gryphius was born as "Andreas Greif" in Großglogau, (Polish: Głogów), in Silesia, where his father was a clergyman. The family name was Greif, latinized, according to the prevailing fashion, as Gryphius. Left early an orphan and driven from his native town by the troubles of the Thirty Years' War, he received his schooling in various places, but notably at Freistadt (Polish: Wschowa), where he enjoyed an excellent classical education.

In 1634 he went to Danzig (Polish:Gdańsk) where he met professors Peter Crüger and Johann Mochinger at the Danzig Gymnasium, who introduced Gryphius to the new German language poetry. Crüger had for years close contacts to Martin Opitz, who became known as 'father of German poetry'. Greatly influenced by Crüger, he is the only one Gryphius dedicated poems to. Gryphius wrote Latin language poetry as well as German poems and a number of Sonetten.

The same year that Gryphius arrived, the printer Andreas Hünefeld published Martin Opitz's Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (Book of German Poetry). The same publisher printed Opitz's translation Tetrastichen des Pibrac and Antigone. Among Gryphius' benefactors was the city's secretary Michael Borck, who wrote a German version of the life of Jesus Christ. Borck's illustrated book is still at the Gdańsk library. Coming from war riddled Silesia, taking refuge at the big international harbor and a Polish city, greatly stimulated Gryphius. In 1635 he published his second epos of Herodes Dei Vindicis Impetus et Herodis Interitus. He dedicated this to the city state council.


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