JOHANN

MICHAEL

See also:

• JOHANN MICHAEL MOSCHEROSCH (1601–1669)

MOSCHEROSCH (1601–1669)  , German satirist, was born at Willstadt, near Strassburg, on the 5th of March 1601 . He received a careful early education at the Latin School at Strassburg, and in 162o began his academic career as a student of jurisprudence . After being for some years tutor in the family of the Graf von Leiningen-Dachsburg, he finally became privy councillor to the landgravine of Hesse-Cassel . He died at Worms on the 4th of April 1669 . Under the name of " Der Traumende," Moscherosch was a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, a society founded by Prince Ludwig of Anhalt-Cothen, in 1617, for the purification of the German language and the fostering of German literature . His most famous work is the Wunderliche and wahrhafftige Gesichte Philanders von Sittewald (anagram of Willstadt) (1642-1643), for which he took as his model the Suehos (visions) of the famous Spaniard Francisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645) . Hardly inferior to the " visions " is the Insomnis cura parentum, Christliches Vermachtnis eines Eaters, which was published at Strassburg in 1643 and again in 1647 . Note-worthy is also Die Patientia, discovered in 1897 in MS. in the municipal library at Hamburg . Selections from Moscherosch's writings have been published by W . Dittmar (183o), F . Bobertag (in Kurschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, xxxii., 1884), and K . Muller (in Reclam's Universalbibliothek) .

Reprints of the Insomnis cura parentum and Patientia have been published by L . Pariser (1893 and 1897), who is also the author of Beitrage zu einer Biographic von Moscherosch (1891) . See also M . Nickels, Moscherosch als Padagog (1883) ; J . Wirth Moscherosch's Gesichte (1888) .