Christian Fürchtegott Gellert

Born July 4, 1715, in Hainichen; died Dec. 13, 1769, in Leipzig. German author.

Gellert preached about the observance of religious duty and the practice of family virtues in his Lectures on Morality (1770) and Spiritual Odes and Songs (1757; Russian translation, 1785). In the spirit of temperate burgher enlightenment he mocked the arrogance of the nobles and false learning in Fables and Tales (vols. 1-2, 1746-48). His were the first attempts to create a German bourgeois comedy (The Sick Wife, 1747) and an enlightenment novel (The Life of the Swedish Countess of G^***, 1746; Russian translation, 1792).