The New International Encyclopædia/Weckherlin, Georg Rudolph

WECKHERLIN, vĕk'hẽr-lḗn, Georg Rudolph (1584-1653). A German poet. He was born at Stuttgart, studied jurisprudence at the University of Tübingen, and entered the diplomatic service of Württemberg. After serving as secretary to Duke John Frederick (1614-c.20) he removed to England, where he served (1624-41) as an Under-Secretary of State. At the outbreak of the Civil War he chose the side of Parliament and from 1644 to 1649 held the position of ‘secretary for foreign tongues.’ Upon his retirement he was succeeded by John Milton, and in 1652 was appointed assistant to the latter, but continued in office only a few months and died in London the following year. Weckherlin's German poems are for the most part imitated from the works of the French Pleiade, especially from Ronsard, or from English writers like Samuel Daniel. He ranks as foremost of the poets before Opitz who tried to introduce Renaissance forms and feelings into German verse. His lyrics are poetic in tone, though hard and unwieldy in form. His chief English poems are “Triumphal Shows Set Forth Lately at Stuttgart” (1616) and “Panegyricke to Lord Hay, Viscount of Doncaster” (1619). His collected poems were edited by H. Fischer (Stuttgart, 1893-95). Consult: Fischer, as above; Cong, Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Schriften R. Weckherlins ( Ludwigsburg, 1803); Höpfner, Weckherlins Oden und Gesänge (Berlin, 1865); and Bohm, Englands Einfluss auf Weckherlin (Göttingen, 1893).