„Himlische[s] beginen“, „trefliche[r] vortgang“

Abstract

AbstractThis essay asks the question of why, in 1647, Jesaias Rompler von Löwenhalt ousts Martin Opitz from the primal scene of German poetry, replacing him instead with Georg Rodolf Weckherlin. According to one hypothesis whose plausibility must be verified, the latter published his odes precisely in the year in which the Thirty Years’ War began, namely in 1618. Rompler, in turn, needed this temporal parallelism between war and literature in order to situate his present within the framework of an apocalyptic scenario. With the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War, he expects a time of salvation which exhibits both political and literary features.