Editing Johann Christian Günther

{{Short description|German poet (1695–1723)}}
{{Update-EB|date=January 2021}}
[[Image:Johann Christian Guenther.jpg|thumb|Johann Christian Günther]]

'''Johann Christian Günther''' (8 April 1695 – 15 March 1723) was a German poet from [[Strzegom|Striegau]] in [[Lower Silesia]]. After attending the [[gymnasium (school)|gymnasium]] at [[Świdnica|Schweidnitz]], he was sent in 1715 by his father, a country doctor, to study medicine at [[Wittenberg]]; but he was idle and dissipated, had no taste for the profession chosen for him, and came to a complete rupture with his family. In 1717 he went to [[Leipzig]], where he was befriended by {{ill|Johann Burkhard Mencke|de}} (1674–1732), who recognized his genius; and there he published a poem on the [[Treaty of Passarowitz|peace of Passarowitz]] (concluded between the German emperor and the Porte in 1718) which acquired him reputation. A recommendation from Mencke to [[Frederick Augustus II of Poland|Frederick Augustus II of Saxony]], king of [[Poland]], proved worse than useless, as Günther appeared at the audience drunk. From that time he led an unsettled and dissipated life, sinking ever deeper into the slough of misery, until he died at [[Jena]] on March 15, 1723, when only in his 28th year. [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]] pronounces Günther to have been a poet in the fullest sense of the term. His lyric poems as a whole give evidence of deep and lively sensibility, fine imagination, clever wit, and a true ear for melody and rhythm; but an air of cynicism is more or less present in most of them, and dull or vulgar witticisms are not infrequently found side by side with the purest inspirations of his genius.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|wstitle=Günther, Johann Christian|volume=12|page=730|inline=1}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Johann Christian Gunther  Baroque Poet, Writer |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johann-Christian-Gunther |website=Brittanica |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica |date=March 11, 2025}}</ref>

==Works==
*Günther's collected poems were published in four volumes ([[Wrocław|Breslau]], 1723–1735).<ref name=EB1911/>
**They are also included in vol. vi. of [[Julius Tittmann]]'s ''Deutsche Dichter des 17ten Jahrh.'' (Leipzig, 1874), and vol. xxxviii. of Kurschner's ''Deutsche Nationalliteratur'' (1883).<ref name=EB1911/>
*A pretended autobiography of Günther appeared at [[Świdnica|Schweidnitz]] in 1732, and a life of him by [[Siebrand]] at Leipzig in 1738. See:<ref name=EB1911/>
**[[Hoffmann von Fallersleben]], ''J. Gb. Günther'' (Breslau, 1833)
**[[O. Roquette]], ''Leben und Dichten J. Ch. Günthers'' ([[Stuttgart]], 1860)
**[[M. Kalbeck]], ''Neue Beiträge zur Biographie des Dichters C. Günther'' (Breslau, 1879).

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{commons category-inline|Johann Christian Günther}}
* {{Librivox author |id=12180}}

{{German literature}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunther, Johann Christian}}
[[Category:1695 births]]
[[Category:1723 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Strzegom]]
[[Category:18th-century German poets]]
[[Category:German male poets]]
[[Category:German-language poets]]
[[Category:People from the Habsburg monarchy]]