Authors

German · 1715–1769

Christian Fürchtegott Gellert

Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was a German poet and moralist whose Fabeln und Erzählungen (1746-1748) were the most widely read German literary works of the eighteenth century, achieving a circulation that Goethe and Schiller could only envy. He taught at Leipzig University, where his students included the young Goethe, and his combination of accessible verse, Protestant piety, and warm humanism made him the moral authority of his generation.