Georg Rudolf Weckherlin

Born Sept. 15, 1584, in Stuttgart; died Feb. 13, 1653, in London. German poet. The son of an official.

Weckherlin studied law at the University of Tübingen. From 1620 he lived in England, where he was secretary of the Privy Council of the English Parliament. A representative of the early baroque in German literature of the early 17th century, Weckherlin published the two-book series Odes and Songs (1618 and 1619) and the collection Religious and Secular Poems (1641). He also wrote anacreontic drinking songs and love songs. In his best sonnets and odes (such as the sonnet “Germany” and the ode “To Work, Brave Soldiers”), Weckherlin passionately condemned tyranny and war.