Briefwechsel und Lebenszeugnisse

Martin Opitz (1597-1639), the founder of German art poetry when European national cultures were being born, left a corpus of mainly Latin letters and inscriptions. These are now published for the first time in translation, richly illustrated and with a detailed commentary, together with letters from Opitz' correspondents, with his dedications, and with scattered biographical documents and reports from his contemporaries. Opitz' correspondence stretches from Paris, Leyden and Strasbourg as far as Silesia, Transylvania, Prussia, Poland and Sweden and makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of European cultural history. Apart from topics of late humanist scholarship (e.g. epigraphy, church history, classical literature and historiology) it contains reports from diplomatic envoys and war reports, early evidence of German literary and linguistic criticism, of the culture of letter-writing and of the reception of the Middle Ages. Leading scholars, theologians, monarchs, politicians and poets make an appearance, such as J. A. Comenius, S. Dach, P. Fleming and H. Grotius, Prince Ludwig of Anhalt-Köthen and other members of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (Fruitbearing Society). The edition is published in three volumes, and apart from the actual documents contains a detailed introduction, Christoph Coler's biography of Opitz, a comprehensive bibliography, numerous lists and two indexes.

Klaus Conermann, Wolfenbüttel.