Johann Michael Moscherosch
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2014) |
Johann Michael Moscherosch (7 March 1601 – 4 April 1669), German statesman, satirist, and educator, was born at Willstätt, on the Upper Rhine near Strassburg.
His bitterly brilliant but partisan writings graphically describe life in a Germany ravaged by the Thirty Years' War (1618–48). His satires, which at times are tedious, also show an overwhelming moral zeal added to a sense of mission.
Life
Moscherosch was the son of farmer and
After completing his studies Moscherosch first took educational trips to France and Switzerland, and then worked as a private tutor. From 1631 to 1634 he was one of the bailiffs of the Lutheran branch of the Counts of
From 1656 he served as a legal adviser to
On 9 September 1628 Moscherosch married Esther Ackermann, who died in December 1632 during the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War. On 20 August 1633 he married his second wife, Maria Barbara Paniel, who died of plague on 6 November 1634, aged barely twenty. On 4 October 1636 he married his third wife Anna Maria Kilburger. From these three marriages he had fourteen children, of whom many did not survive infancy. Moscherosch died in
Moscherosch's life encompasses the entire Thirty Years' War whose cruelties and excesses are reflected in detail in his work.
Work
Moscherosch published essays, poems and short stories in Latin and German under the pseudonym Philander von Sittewald—"Sittewald" is a play on the name of his birthplace, Willstaett. The Aufrichtige Tannengesellschaft—a German Language society founded in 1633 in Strassburg by Jesaias Rompler and Johannes Freinsheim—counted Moscherosch along with Johann Matthias Schneuber among its most eminent members.
In 1645 Prince Ludwig I of Anhalt-Köthen awarded him membership in the Fruitbearing Society, a prestigious German literary society. The society assigned him the nickname "The Dreaming" (der Träumende) and the motto "high things" (hohe Sachen ). His emblem was the nightshade (Solanum nigrum). In the annals of the society Moscherosch is entry number 436.
Moscherosch's most famous work is Wunderliche und Wahrhafftige Gesichte Philanders von Sittewald (Wondrous and True Visions of Philander von Sittewald), a collection of fourteen satirical narratives published from 1640, an adaptation of the Spanish book Los Sueños by Francisco de Quevedo. One of the stories, Soldatenleben (Military Life), was republished in 1996.
Moscherosch appears in the 1979 fictional story The Meeting at Telgte (Das Treffen in Telgte) by Günter Grass.
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Moscherosch, Johann Michael". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 890–891.
- ^ Moscherosch, Johann Michael; Bernegger, Matthias (1622). In C. Suetonii Tranquilli XII Caesares Diatribe XV. Retrieved Sep 11, 2014.
- ISBN 9783039103911. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
External links
- Gesichte Philanders von Sittewald at archive.org.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
