4 Milton D. Baumgartner 



Mac Flecknoe was introduced into Germany by Christian Wer- 

 nicke, diplomat, poet, and as critic a forerunner of Lessing. 

 Under the tutelage of the scholar, Morhof, he had learned to 

 honor and appreciate the poet and critic Opitz^^ and his succes- 

 sors, Gryphus, Hoffmannswaldau, and Lohenstein. In one of his 

 early epigrams^^ he says: 



" Den deutschen Pegases setzte Opitz in Lauf 

 Und Gryph verbesserte was war an ihm getadelt, 

 Hernach trat Lohenstein mit Hoffmannswaldau auf 

 Die unsere Dichtkunst und sich durch sie geadelt." 



The dramas of Gryphius had made him one of the foremost 

 literary characters, but when Wernicke began his career, Hoff- 

 mannswaldau and Lohenstein were the idolized and imitated 

 poets. 



" Der hat den ersten zwar, doch die den groszten Ruhm.''^* 



Later however, the bombastic, picturesque style which the two 

 latter had imbibed from the Italians, especially Marino, was 

 recognized by Wernicke, and he characterized their poetry as 

 containing " mehr falscher als wahrer Witz "^^ 



Wernicke's sojourn as diplomat at Paris and London, incident- 

 ally, furnished an opportunity for familiarizing himself with the 

 language, literature, and criticism of the two neighboring coun- 

 tries. During his stay in London, Wernicke became somewhat 

 acquainted with Dryden's satires and owned a copy. Aside from 

 Mac Flecknoe, he was familiar with at least Absalom and Achito- 

 phel, and The Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel, as he 

 later employs a motive found in each of the two. This familiarity 

 broadened his literary tastes, and the diplomatic service tended to 

 sharpen his already keen, original, critical wit. 



Through Wernicke, Mac Flecknoe was first introduced at 



12 His Buck der deutschen Poeterei (1624), little more than a compila- 

 tion, had been a guide for German critics. 



13 " Ursprung und Fortgang der deutschen Poesie." 

 i*Ibid. 



15 See note to the Epigram, Auf die Schlesischen Poeten, Palaestra, 

 LXXI, p. 314. 



292 



