“ Opitz was the head of the so-called First Silesian School of poets (see Germany:Literature) , and was during his life regarded as the greatest German poet. Although he would not to-day be considered a poetical genius, he may justly claim to have been the “father of German poetry” in respect at least of its form; his Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (1624) put an end to the hybridism that had until then prevailed, and established rules for the “purity” of language, style, verse and rhyme. Opitz’s own poems are in accordance with the rigorous rules which he laid down. ”

“ In 1618 he entered the university of Frankfort-on-Oder as a student of literae humaniores, and in the same year published his first essay, Aristarchus, sive De contemptu linguae Teutonicae, a plea for the purification of the German language from foreign adulteration. In 1619 he went to Heidelberg, where he became the leader of the school of young poets which at that time made that university town remarkable. ”

“ They are mostly a formal and sober elaboration of carefully considered themes, and contain little beauty and less feeling. To this didactic and descriptive category belong his best poems, Trost-Gedichte in Widerwärtigkeit des Krieges (written 1621, but not published till 1633) ; Zlatna, oder von Ruhe des Gemüts (1622) ; Lob des Feldlebens (1623) ”