Just Friedrich Wilhelm Zacharia

Zacharia, Just Friedrich Wilhelm or Just Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariä, (Frankenhausen, 1726-77, Brunswick), German minor poet, studied at Leipzig and Göttingen universities. In 1748 he was appointed a master at the Carolinum in Brunswick, receiving the title of professor in 1761.

As a student Zachariä was an adherent of Gottsched and, as such, wrote his first and principal work, the verse satire Der Renommiste (1744, repr. 1909). He soon after transferred his allegiance to the Bremer Beiträger. His later works include Das Schnupftuch (1754, a satire on the nobility) and Murner in der Hölle, a comic poem in 5 books, dealing with cats (1757). He also wrote short poems and translated Milton's Paradise Lost into German hexameters (2 vols., 1760). A serious epic poem on Hernando Cortés remained unfinished (Cortes, vol. 1, 1766). His contribution to the comic epic is the most notable aspect of his work.

Zachariä's Sämmtliche Poetische Schriften (9 vols.) were published 1763-5, his Hinterlassene Schriften, ed. J. J. Eschenburg, 1781. Der Renommiste. Das Schnupftuch. Mit einem Anhang zur Gattung des Komischen Epos, ed. A. Maler, 1974.