Martin Opitz

Born on December 23, 1597, in Bunzlau, Silesia, Martin Opitz became one of the most influential German poets and literary theorists of the 17th century. He studied in places including Frankfurt an der Oder and Heidelberg, and his career unfolded during the upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War.

Opitz is especially remembered for helping reform German verse. His 1624 treatise Buch von der deutschen Poeterey argued that German could be a serious literary language and laid out principles for meter, style, and poetic craft. By drawing on classical and European models while writing in German, he helped set standards that shaped later poets for generations.

During his lifetime, he was widely celebrated and was later ennobled as Martin Opitz von Boberfeld. He died in Danzig on August 20, 1639, but his reputation endured because of the lasting effect he had on German literature and on the development of a national poetic tradition.