JOHANN

JOACHIM

See also:

• JOHANN JOACHIM ESCHENBURG (1743–1820)

ESCHENBURG (1743–1820)  , German critic and literary historian, was born at Hamburg on the 7th of December 1743 . After receiving his' early education in his native town, he studied at Leipzig and Gottingen . In 1767 he was appointed tutor, and subsequently professor, at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick . The title of " Hofrat " was conferred on him in 1786, and in 1814 he was made one of the directors of the Carolinum . He is best known by his efforts to familiarize his countrymen with English literature . He published a series of German translations of the principal English writers on aesthetics, such as J . Brown, D . Webb, Charles Burney, Joseph Priestley and R . Hurd; and Germany owes also to him the first complete translation (in prose) of Shakespeare's plays (William Shakespear's Schauspiele, 13 vols., Zurich, 1775–1782) . This is virtually a revised edition of the incomplete translation published by Wieland between 1762 and 1766 . Eschenburg died at Brunswick on the 29th of February 182o . Besides editing, with memoirs, the works of Hagedorn, Zacharia and other German poets, he was the author of a Hand-buck der klassischen Literatur (1783); Entwurf einer Theorie and Literatur der schonen Wissenschaften (1783); Beispielsammlung zur Theorie and Literatur der schonen Wissenschaften (8 vols., 1788–1795); Lehrbuch der Wissenschaftskunde (1792); and Denkmdler altdeutscher Dichtkunst (1799) .

Most of these works have passed through several

editions . Eschenburg was also a poet of some pretensions, and some of his religious hymns, e.g . Ich will dick noch im Tod erheben and Dir trau' ich, Gott, and wanke nicht, are contained in many hymnals to this day .