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Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (1737-1823), German poet and critic, was born at Tondern in Schleswig on the 3rd of January 1737.

After studying law at Jena he entered the Danish military service and took part in the Russian campaign of 1762. He spent the next twelve years in Copenhagen, where he was intimate with Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. From 1775 to 1783 he represented Denmark's interests as Danish Resident at Lübeck, and in 1786 received a judicial appointment at Altona, where he died on the ist of November 1823.

In the course of his long life Gerstenberg passed through many phases of his nation's literature. He began as an imitator of the Anacreontic school (Tdndeleien, 1759); then wrote, in imitation of Gleim, Kriegslieder eines dänischen Grenadiers (1762); with his Gedicht eines Skalden (1766) he joined the group of bards led by Klopstock. He translated Beaumont and Fletcher's Maids Tragedy (1767), and helped to usher in the Sturm und Drang period with a gruesome but powerful tragedy, Ugolino (1768). But he did perhaps even better service to the new literary movement with his Briefe Uber Merkwürdigkeiten der Literatur (1766-1770), in which the critical principles of the Sturm und Drang, and especially its enthusiasm for Shakespeare, were first definitely formulated. In later life Gerstenberg lost touch with literature, and occupied himself mainly with Kant's philosophy.

His Vermischte Schriften appeared in 3 vols. (1815). The Brieff Uber Merkwürdigkeiten der Literatur were republished by A. voc Weilen (1888).

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.