Sigmund von Birken

Birken, Sigmund von, also Betulius (Wildstein nr. Eger [Cheb], 1626-81, Nuremberg), the son of a Protestant pastor whose family fled for protection to Protestant Nuremberg in 1629. After studying for a time in Jena (1643-4) he returned to Nuremberg where in 1645 he became a member of the Pegnesischer Blumenorden under the name Floridan. In this year he also became a member of the Deutschgesinnte Genossenschaft (see Zesen, P.). In 1646 he worked at the court of Wolfenbüttel as tutor to the ducal children, among whom was Anton Ulrich, with whom Birken was to develop a literary relationship. After travelling in northern Germany, Birken returned to Nuremberg in 1648. In 1655 he was ennobled, in 1658 he became a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, taking the sobriquet der Erwachsene, and in 1662 he became head of the Pegnesischer Blumenorden. Birken worked as tutor, historiographer, translator, and as a literary adviser to the courts of Vienna, Dresden, Wolfenbüttel, and Brandenburg-Bayreuth. Famous as a diarist and renowned for his pastorals, his works also include occasional and religious poems, and festal works for great occasions in ode or dramatic form. Among his numerous and varied publications are Krieges- und Friedensbildung (1649), Teutscher Kriegs Ab- und Friedens Einzug (1650), Die Friederfreuete Teutonie (1652), Geistlicher Weihrauchkörner Oder Andachtslieder (1652), Passions-Andachten (1653), Neues Schauspiel Betitlet Androfilo Oder Die WunderLiebe … Nebenst einem Nachspiel Betitlet Silvia Oder die Wunderthäthige Schönheit (1656), Die Truckene Trunkenheit. Eine aus Jacobi Balde … gedeutschte Satyra oder Straff-Rede wider den Mißbrauch des Tabaks (1658), Singspiel, betitlet Sophia (1662), Pegnesische Gesprächspiel-Gesellschaft (1665), Hochfürstliche Brandenburgische Ulysses (1668), Guelphis oder Nidersächsischer Lorbeerhayn (1669), and Todes-Gedancken und Todten-Andenken (1670). Birken's treatise on poetics, Teutsche Rede- bind- und DichtKunst, though written c.1650, was not published until 1679 (reprinted 1973). Unbekannte Gedichte und Lieder des Sigmund von Birken, ed. by J. R. Paas (1990), contains over 150 previously unknown poems.