JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER


Hesperus


Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, who was born at Wunsiedel, in
Bavaria, on March 21, 1763, and died on November 14, 1825, was
the son of a poor but highly accomplished schoolmaster, who
early in his career became a Lutheran pastor at Schwarzenbach,
on the Saale. Young Richter entered Leipzig University in
1780, specially to study theology, but became one of the most
eccentric and erratic of students, a veritable literary gypsy,
roaming over vast fields of literature, collating and noting
immense stores of scientific, artistic, historic, and
philosophic facts. Driven to writing for subsistence, he only
won a reputation by slow degrees, but so great at last was the
esteem in which his countrymen held him that he is typically
styled "Der Einzige" ("The Unique"). The turning point proved
to be the issue of "The Invisible Lodge" ("Die Unsichtbare
Loge") in 1793, a romance founded on some of his academic
experiences. Then followed a brilliant series of works which
have made Richter's name famous. Among these was "Hesperus,"
published in 1794, which made him one of the most famous of
German writers. Fanciful and extravagant as the work is, and
written without any regard to the laws of composition, it is
nevertheless stamped with genius. In all Richter's stories the
plot goes for nothing; it is on the thoughts that he strikes
out by the way that his fame depends.