Friedrich Klopstock

1724 (Quedlinburg, Germany) – 1803 (Hamburg)

The scholar Bodmer invited Klopstock to Zürich, but was upset by the young poet’s worldliness. Kauffman painted a scene from one of his poems, but a planned collaboration proved abortive and the friendship waned. He visited Goethe, not realising that Goethe’s achievements would put his own in the shade. Lavater called on him during an extensive trip through Germany while waiting for Zürich to cool down (he and Fuseli had denounced a corrupt magistrate there); so did the young Wordsworths and Coleridge when they passed through Hamburg on their way to a cold and miserable winter in the Harz.