Andreas Gryphius (; 2 October 161616 July 1664) was a German poet and playwright. With his eloquent sonnets, which contains "The Suffering, Frailty of Life and the World", he is considered one of the most important Baroque poets of the Germanosphere. He was one of the first improvers of the German language and German poetry.
Gryphius was born and raised in Glogau (Głogów), Duchy of Głogów, Silesia. At the age of 33, he married Rosina Deutschländer, with whom he had six children, Christian, Constantin, Anna Rosine, Theodor, Maria Elisabeth, and Daniel.
Life
Early life
Andreas Gryphius was the son of Paullus Gryphius, a respected clergyman and a Lutheran archdeacon of Glogau, originally from Uthleben and Paullus' third wife, Anna (née Eberhardin), who was 32 years younger than her husband, the daughter of a businessman from Fraustadt, the councilor Jonas Deutschländer the Elder (died in 1661) and Anna Sachse. He was born in Großglogau (Głogów). The family name was originally "Greif" and had been Latinised to "Gryphius" by Andreas' paternal great-grandfather (Peter Greif von Heringen). 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.
Career in poetry
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 the 'father of German poetry'. Greatly influenced by Crüger, he is the only one Gryphius dedicated poems to. Gryphius wrote Latin language poetry, German poems and sonnets.
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 (Tetrasticha of Pibrac, or four verse) 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.
In 1636, while still in Danzig, he published the Parnassus renovatus in praise of his mentor and patron, the eminent jurist Georg Schönborner (1579–1637). Later the same year Gryphius became the tutor of Schönborner's two sons, on Schönborner's estate near Freystadt, in Silesia (today, Kożuchów, Poland). A highly educated scholar, Schönborner held various government administrative posts and by that time had been honored by Emperor Ferdinand II with the title of Imperial Count Palatine (Hofpfalzgraf). On 30 November 1637, Schönborner recognized Gryphius's poetic talent by bestowing upon him the title of poeta laureatus and master of philosophy, as well as a patent of nobility (of which Gryphius, however, never made use). Schönborner died less than a month later, on 23 December 1637.
While staying with Schönborner, Gryphius completed his first collection of poems, Sonnete ("Sonnets"), which was published in 1637 by Wigand Funck in Lissa (today Leszno, Poland), and is also known as the Lissaer Sonettbuch, after the town. The collection of 31 sonnets includes some of his best known poems, such as "Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas", later titled "Es ist alles eitel" (All is vanity), about the effects of war and the transitoriness of human life; "Menschliches Elende" (Human misery); and "Trawrklage des verwüsteten Deutschlandes" (Lament of devastated Germany).
In 1632, he had witnessed the pillaging and burning of the Silesian town of Freystadt by Swedish troops, and immortalized the event in his poem Fewrige Freystadt. Also in 1637 he went to continue his studies at Leiden, where he remained for six years, both hearing and delivering lectures. Here he fell under the influence of the great Dutch dramatists, Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft and Joost van den Vondel, who largely determined the character of his later dramatic works.