VOSS, Johann Heinrich (1751-1826), German poet, archaeologist, and translator, was born at Sommersdorf in Mecklenburg on the 20th February 1751. In the same year his father, a farmer, removed from Sommersdorf to Penzlin. From 1766 to 1769 Voss attended school at Neubrandenburg. In the latter year, in consequence of misfortunes which had overtaken his father, he was obliged to accept a tutorship in the family of a private gentleman near Penzlin. He went to Göttingen in 1772, in response to the invitation of Boie, whose attention he had attracted by poems contributed to the Göttingen Musenalmanach. At Göttingen he studied with enthusiasm ancient and modern literature, and became one of the leading members of the famous “Dichterbund.” In 1775 Boie made over to him the editing of the Musenalmanach, which he continued to issue for many years. He married Boie’s sister, Ernestine, in 1777, and in the following year he accepted the position of rector at Ottendorf in Hanover. As the climate of Ottendorf did not suit his health, he resigned this office in 1782, and went as rector to Eutin, where he remained until 1802. He then lived for some time in Jena, but in 1805 he accepted a call to a professorship at Heidelberg. He died at Heidelberg on March 29, 1826....
Voss was a man of a remarkably independent and vigorous character, and he achieved distinction in several kinds of literary activity. In 1785-95 he published in two volumes a collection of original poems, to which he afterwards made many additions. The best of these works is his idyllic poem “Luise,” in which he sought, with much success, to apply the style and methods of classical poetry to the expression of modern German thought and sentiment. In his Mythologische Briefe (2 vols., 1794), in which he attacked the ideas of Heyne, in his Antisymbolik (2 vols., 1824-26), written in opposition to Creuzer, and in other writings he made important contributions to the study of mythology. He was also prominent as an advocate of the right of free judgment in religion, and at the time when some members of the Romantic school were being converted to the Roman Church he produced a strong impression by a powerful article, in Sophronizon, on his friend Friedrich von Stolberg’s repudiation of Protestantism. It is, however, to his work as a translator that Voss chiefly owes his place in German literature. All his renderings of the works of ancient writers indi cate not only sound scholarship but a thorough mastery of the laws of German diction and rhythm. The most famous of his translations are those of Homer, which were published together, in 4 volumes, in 1793. Of these the one generally preferred is the translation of the Odyssey, as originally issued in 1781. He also translated Hesiod, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and other classical poets, and he prepared a critical edition of Tibullus. In 1818-29 was published, in 9 volumes, a translation of Shakespeare’s plays, which he completed with the help of his sons Heinrich and Abraham, both of whom were scholars and writers of considerable ability.
See Paulus, Lebens-u. Todeskunden über J. H. Voss (1826), and Herbst, J. H. Voss (2 vols., 1872-76).
[549 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]