Wieland, Christoph Martin

Wieland, Christoph Martin (1733-1813), German writer, born in Oberholzheim, Württemberg, and educated at the University of Tübingen. His early works consist mainly of fervently religious poetry but in 1760 he abandoned his intense piety and became an outspoken freethinker. He then wrote a play, Lady Johanna Gray (1758), the first German drama in blank verse, and ridiculed his early faith in the romance Die Abenteuer des Don Sylvio von Rosalva (Adventure of Don Sylvio of Rosalva, 1764). Between 1762 and 1766 Wieland translated 22 plays by Shakespeare, which made Shakespeare better known in Germany. His novel Geschichte des Agathon (1766-1767; The History of Agathon, 1773), an account of a young man's education, is a forerunner of the modern psychological novel and a perfect embodiment of Enlightenment ideals.

In 1769 Wieland became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Erfurt. His outstanding work while at Erfurt was Der goldene Spiegel (The Golden Mirror, 1772), a cycle of tales about an enlightened ruler. He founded and edited Der teutsche Merkur (The German Mercury, 1773-1810), which became a leading literary journal, and Das attische Museum (The Attic Museum, 1796-1809), in which he published his translations of Greek and Latin classics. Among the works of this period are Die Abderiten. Eine sehr wahrscheinliche Geschichte (1774; The Republic of Fools, 1861), a satire of provincial life; and Oberon (1780; trans. 1798), a witty and sophisticated verse romance, generally considered his masterpiece.