MATTHIAS

See also:

• CLAUDIUS
• CLAUDIUS [TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS NERO GERMANICUS]
• CLAUDIUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
• MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS (174o-1815)

CLAUDIUS (174o-1815)  , German poet, other-wise known by the nom de plume of Asmus, was born on the 15th of August 1740 at Reinfeld, near Lubeck, and studied at Jena . He spent the greater part of his life in the little town of Wands-beck, near Hamburg, where he earned his first literary reputation by editing from 1771 to 1775, a newspaper called the Wandsbecker Bote (Wandsbeck Messenger), in which he published a large number of prose essays and poems . They were written in pure and simple German, and appealed to the popular taste; in many there was a vein of extravagant humour or even burlesque, while others were full of quiet meditation and solemn sentiment . In his later days, perhaps through the influence of Klopstock, with whom he had formed an intimate acquaintance, Claudius became strongly pietistic, and the graver side of his nature showed itself . In 1814 he removed to I-Iamburg, to the house of his son-in-law, the publisher Friedrich Christoph Perthes, where he died on the 21st of January 1815 . Claudius's collected works were published under the title of Asmus omnia sua secum portans, oder .Samtliche Werke des Wandsbecker Boten (8 vols., 1775–1812 ; 13th edition, by C . Redich, 2 vols., 1902) . His biography has been written by Wilhelm Herbst (4th ed., 1878) . See also M . Schneidereit, M . Claudius, seine Weltanschauung and Lebensweisheit (1898) .