Hans Sachs Biography

Dromo's Den

SACHS, Hans (1494–1576). A German poet and dramatist, the best and also the most prolific of the meistersingers (q.v.). He was born in Nuremberg, the son of a shoemaker, to whose trade he was trained, having first received an education at the town Latin school. After his apprenticeship came years of journeyman wandering. Returning to Nuremberg in 1516, he was diligent alike at his trade and his literary avocation and took earnest but peaceful interest in the Reformation movement. He died in 1576. Though early trained in the rules of the Meistergesang, he soon emancipated himself from their excessive pedantry. His versification was always mechanical and his purpose prevailingly didactic, but his humor was exuberant and his imagination fertile. He wrote hymns, some of which did great service to the Reformation in its first decades, fables, allegories, merry tales (Schwänke), dialogues, comedies, and Shrovetide plays (Fastnacht-spiele)—in all some 6300 pieces. Sachs's work continued popular till the days of Opitz; then his fame gradually suffered almost total eclipse till it was revived by Goethe, especially through his Hans Sachsens poetische Sendung (1776). The four-hundredth anniversary of his birth was celebrated in New York in 1894. The best edition of his works is in 26 volumes by A. von Keller and C. Goetze (Tübingen, 1870-1908). The best selection is by Gödeke and Tittmann in Deutsche Dichter des 16ten Jahrhunderts (2d ed., Leipzig, 1883–85).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 288.