Paul Fleming | |
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| Born | (1609-10-05)5 October 1609 |
| Died | 2 April 1640(1640-04-02) (aged 30) Hamburg, Holy Roman Empire |
| Other names | Paul Flemming |
| Education | St. Thomas School, Leipzig |
| Alma mater | Leipzig University |
| Occupations |
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Paul Fleming (also speltFlemming; 5 October 1609 – 2 April 1640[1]) was a German physician and poet.
As well as writing notable verse andhymns, he spent several years accompanying theDuke of Holstein's embassies toRussia andPersia. He also lived for a year atReval on the coast ofEstonia, where he wrote many love-songs.
Born atHartenstein,Saxony, the son of Abraham Fleming, a well-to-doLutheranpastor, Fleming received his early education from his father before attending a school atMittweida and then the famousSt. Thomas School at Leipzig. He received his initial medical training atLeipzig University, where he also studied literature and graduated as aDoctor of Philosophy before gaining his medical doctorate at theUniversity of Hamburg.[2][3]
TheThirty Years' War drove Fleming toHolstein,[3] where in 1633Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, engaged him as physician, courtier and steward. Towards the end of 1633 the Duke sent Fleming withAdam Olearius as a member of an embassy toRussia and thePersian Empire headed byOtto Brüggemann andPhilipp Crusius. Fleming was outside Germany for almost six years, much of them in the two foreign empires.[4] Travelling into Russia, Fleming was in an advance party of the embassy which went toNovgorod, where he remained while negotiations went on with the Swedes and the Russians. At the end of July 1634 the ambassadors joined the party, and the embassy proceeded toMoscow, arriving on 14 August. After four months in the capital city, the Holstein embassy departed again for the Baltic onChristmas Eve, 1634, and on 10 January 1635 arrived at Reval (nowTallinn) inSwedish Estonia. While the ambassadors continued toGottorp some of the party, including Fleming, remained in Reval.[5] In the event, Fleming was there for about a year, during which he organized a poetry circle called "the Shepherds".[6] Not long after his arrival in Reval, Fleming began his courtship of Elsabe Niehus, the daughter of Heinrich Niehus, a merchant originally fromHamburg.[7] He wrote love poems for her, and they became engaged to be married. In 1636 the embassy proceeded to Persia, by way of a further visit to Moscow, and Elsabe was left behind.[8] Fleming'sEpistolae ex Persia were four letters in verse written during his time in Persia, between 1636 and 1638.[9] The embassy was atIsfahan in 1637. On returning to Reval, Fleming found that Elsabe had married another man and became engaged to her sister, Anna Niehus.[8][10]
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In 1639 Fleming resumed his medical studies at theUniversity of Leiden, and in 1640 was awarded a doctorate.[8] He settled inHamburg, where he died on 2 April 1640.
With his contemporariesMartin Opitz (1597–1639),Andreas Gryphius (1616–1664),Christian Hoffmann von Hoffmannswaldau (1616–1679) and the rather laterDaniel Casper von Lohenstein (1635–1683), Fleming is one of the writers now called "the Silesian poets" or "the Silesian school".[11] As a lyricist he stands in the front rank of German poets.[2]
Fleming's well-known poems includeAuf den Tod eines Kindes (On the Death of a Child) andMadrigal.[12] A number of hissonnets are about the places he visited in his travels.[6] The only collections published in his lifetime wereRubella seu Suaviorum Liber (1631) andKlagegedichte über das unschuldigste Leiden und Tod unsers Erlösers Jesu Christi (Laments concerning the most innocent Suffering and Death of our Saviour Jesus Christ), printed early in 1632, the second of which begins with an invocation ofMelpomene, theMuse oftragedy.[13] HisTeutsche Poemata (Poems in German), published posthumously in 1642, was later renamedGeistliche und weltliche Gedichte (Spiritual and Secular Poems) and contains many notable love-songs.
Fleming wrote inLatin as well as in German, and his Latin poems were published in a single volume in 1863, edited by Johann Martin Lappenberg.[14] Fleming has been called a man of "real poetic genius",[15] "the only good poet in Germany during the Thirty Years' War",[16] "possibly the greatest German lyric poet of the seventeenth century"[17] and "the GermanHerrick".[11]Günter Grass has called him "one of the major figures in German seventeenth-century literature".[18]
Fleming wrote the hymn in nine stanzas "In allen meinen Taten" (In all that I do) on the melody of "Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen" byHeinrich Isaac,[19] which is contained in several hymnals.[20]Johann Sebastian Bach used the final stanza to close bothcantatasMeine Seufzer, meine Tränen (BWV 13) andSie werden euch in den Bann tun (BWV 44). The complete hymn is the base for Bach'schorale cantataIn allen meinen Taten (BWV 97).[20][17] Already in the 17th century another composer,David Pohle (1624–1695), had set twelve of Fleming's love-songs to music.[21]Johannes Brahms set "Lass dich nur nichts bedauern" asGeistliches Lied, Op. 30.[22]Pauline Volkstein also set Fleming's texts to music.[23]
Source:"Paul Fleming (1609–1640)"(PDF).Die Barockepoche im Spiegel der Lyrik (in German).University of Konstanz. Retrieved3 October 2018.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Fleming, Paul".The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.