Daniel Georg Morhof

Daniel Georg Morhof.

Daniel Georg Morhof (February 6, 1639 – July 30, 1691) was a German writer and scholar.

Bibliography

Morhof was born at Wismar. He first studied jurisprudence and then literae humaniores at the University of Rostock,^[1] where his elegant Latin versification procured for him in 1660 the chair of poetry.^[2] In 1665 he moved to the University of Kiel as professor of eloquence and poetry; this chair he exchanged for that of history in 1673. He died at Lübeck.

Of his numerous writings, the most important are Unterricht von der deutschen Sprache und Poesie (1682), the first attempt in Germany at a systematic survey of European literature, and Polyhistor, sive de auctorum notitia et rerum commentarii (Lübeck, 1688, not completed till 1707; 4th ed., 1747), a kind of encyclopaedia of the knowledge and learning of his time.

Notes

1. See entries of Daniel Georg Morhof in Rostock Matrikelportal
2. See entry of Daniel Georg Morhof in Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Morhof, Daniel Georg". Encyclopædia Britannica 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 836. This cites:
  • Eymer, Morhof und sein Polyhistor (in the Xenia Austriaca, Vienna, 1893)
  • Biography by R. v. Liliencron in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1885)