Karl Philipp Moritz
Moritz, Karl Philipp (Hamelin, 1756-93, Berlin), had a hard and unhappy childhood and was apprenticed to a hat-maker in Brunswick. He tried his hand at acting before becoming a schoolmaster under J. B. Basedow at the Philanthropinum in Dessau, from where he moved to the military orphanage in Potsdam, and, in 1780, to a post (Konrektor) at the Gymnasium am Grauen Kloster in Berlin, where he accepted four years later another appointment (Professor) at the Köllnisches Gymnasium. He became engaged in journalistic editorial work, and in 1781 published a play (Schauspiel) entitled Blunt, oder der Gast, which has been termed the first German fate tragedy (see Schicksalstragödie).
In 1785 the first volume of Moritz's autobiographical novel Anton Reiser appeared, the second and third in 1786, the fourth and last following in 1790. This, his principal work of fiction, is both the key to his tormented personality and a cultural document of the age. In his other novels self-analysis and psychological portrayal of character recede in favour of a symbolical style: Andreas Hartknopf (1786), to which he wrote a continuation, Andreas Hartknopfs Predigerjahre (1790), and Die neue Cecilia, which remained unfinished (fragment published posthumously 1794). In 1786 Moritz gave up his teaching post and went to Italy in order to acquire the breadth of knowledge which his hard youth had denied him. There he met Goethe, who became his friend.
Moritz's essay Versuch einer deutschen Prosodie (1786), which asserted the principle of stress against that of quantity, was valued highly by Goethe, and Moritz thereafter devoted himself chiefly to writings on aesthetics. These include the important Über die bildende Nachahmung des Schönen, published in 1788, Vorlesungen über den Stil, Götterlehre oder Mythologische Dichtungen der Alten (on Greek mythology, both 1791), and Über ein Gemälde von Goethe (1792), which is an examination of the style of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. His extensive studies on psychology are contained in the periodical Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde (10 vols., 1783-93), the first of its kind to appear in Germany. He wrote about his travels to England (in 1782) in Reisen eines Deutschen in England (1783), and to Italy in Reisen eines Deutschen in Italien (3 vols., 1792-3). From 1789 until his death from tuberculosis Moritz held a professorship at the Academy of Arts in Berlin, where he is believed to have died, though some authorities have stated that his death took place during a visit to Dresden. A number of his works, including his novels, have been reissued in the 20th c.;
