Gottfried August Buerger | Biography

One of the most significant poets and literary figures of the eighteenth century, Gottfried August Bürger is most remembered today for his popular folk ballad, "Lenore" (translated as Leonora, 1796), published in the Göttinger Musenalmanach in 1773. The son of Johann Gottfried Bürger, pastor in Molmerswende, and Gertrud Elisabeth Bürger, née Bauer, Bürger attended the Latin school in Aschersleben for one year. He then matriculated at the Pädagogium in Halle, a school noted for its discipline and strong Protestant theology, on 8 September 1760. Bürger flourished at this school, becoming particularly expert in classical languages, and wrote his first serious poems there. In Halle, Bürger befriended the young Leopold Friedrich von Goeckingk, who later became a Prussian civil servant and a member of the poetic circle known as the "Göttinger Hainbund" (Göttinger Grove League). In 1764, after four years at the Pädagogium, Bürger entered the University of Halle as a...
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