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Johann Fischart
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or Fischen Gilt's Mischen; and it is partly owing to this fact that there is doubt whether some of the works attributed to him are really his. More than 50 satirical works, however, both in prose and verse, remain authentic, among which are - Nachtrab oder Nebelkrah (1570), a satire against one Jakob Rabe, who had become a convert to the Roman Catholic Church; Von St Dominici des Predigermonchs and St Francisci Barfiissers artlichem Leben (1571), a poem with the expressive motto "Sie haben Nasen vnd riechen's nit" (Ye have noses and smell it not), written to defend the Protestants against certain wicked accusations, one of which was that Luther held communion with the devil; Eulenspiegel Reimensweis (written 1571, published 1572); Aller Praktik Grossmutter (1572), after Rabelais's Prognostication Pantagrueline; Floh Haz, Weiber Traz (1573), in which he describes a battle between fleas and women; Affentheuerliche and ungeheuerliche Geschichtschrift vom Leben, Rhaten and Thaten der... Helden and Herren Grandgusier Gargantoa and Pantagruel, also after Rabelais (1575, and again under the modified title, Naupengeheurliche Geschichtklitterung, 1577); Neue kiinstliche Figuren biblischer Historien (1576); Anmahnung zur christlichen Kinderzucht (1576); Das gliickha ft Schiff von Zurich (1576, republished 1828, with an introduction by the poet Ludwig Uhland), a poem commemorating the adventure of a company of Zurich arquebusiers, who sailed from their native town to Strassburg in one day, and brought, as a proof of this feat, a kettleful of Hirsebrei (millet), which had been cooked in Zurich, still warm into Strassburg, and intended to illustrate the proverb "perseverance overcomes all difficulties"; Podagrammisch Trostbiichlein (1577); Philosophisch Ehzuchtbiichlein (1578); the celebrated Bienenkorb des heiligen romischen Immenschwarms, &c., a modification of the Dutch De roomsche Byen-Korf, by Philipp Marnix of St Aldegonde, published in 1579 and reprinted in 1847; Der heilig Brotkorb (1580), after Calvin's Traité des reliques; Das vierhornige Jesuiterhiitlein, a rhymed satire against the Jesuits (1580); and a number of smaller poems.
x. 14 a To Fischart also have been attributed some "Psalmen and geistliche Lieder" which appeared in a Strassburg hymn-book of 1576.
Fischart had studied not only the ancient literatures, but also those of Italy, France, the Netherlands and England. He was a lawyer, a theologian, a satirist and the most powerful Protestant publicist of the counter-reformation period; in politics he was a republican. Above all, he is a master of language, and was indefatigable with his pen. His satire was levelled mercilessly at all perversities in the public and private life of his time - at astrological superstition, scholastic pedantry, ancestral pride, but especially at the papal dignity and the lives of the priesthood and the Jesuits. He indulged in the wildest witticisms, the most abandoned caricature; but all this he did with a serious purpose. As a poet, he is characterized by the eloquence and picturesqueness of his style and the symbolical language he employed. Thirty years after Fischart's death his writings, once so popular, were almost entirely forgotten. Recalled to the public attention by Johann Jakob Bodmer and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, it is only recently that his works have come to be a subject of investigation, and his position in German literature to be fully understood.
Freiherr von Meusebach, whose valuable collection of Fischart's works has passed into the possession of the royal library in Berlin, deals in his Fischartstudien (Halle, 1879) with the great satirist. Fischart's poetical works were published by Hermann Kurz in three volumes (Leipzig, 1866-1868); and selections by K. Goedeke (Leipzig, 1800) and by A. Hauffen in Kiirschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur (Stuttgart, 1893); Die Geschichtklitterung and some minor writings appeared in Scheible's Kloster, vols. 7 and 10 (Stuttgart, 1847-1848). Das gliickha$t Schiff has been frequently reprinted, critical edition by J. Baechtold (1880). See for further biographical details, Erich Schmidt in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 7; A. F. C. Vilmar in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedie; W. Wackernagel, Johann Fischart von Strassburg and Basels Anteil an ihm (2nd ed., Basel, 1875); P. Besson, Etude sur Jean Fischart (Paris, 1889); and A. Hauffen, "Fischart-Studien" (in Euphorion, 1896-1909).
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Johann Fischart'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/j/johann-fischart.html. 1910.
