The New International Encyclopædia/Fischer, Johann Georg

FISCHER, Johann Georg (1816-97). A German poet, born at Gross-Süssen, Württemberg. He taught at Langenau, Ulm, and Stuttgart, and in 1860 was appointed professor at the high school in the latter city. As a poet, Fischer may be regarded as the last noteworthy representative of the traditional Suabian School. He was not in sympathy with modern naturalism, and was influenced chiefly by the poetry of his countryman Schiller, although several of his productions suggest the influence of Goethe, Hölderlin, and Mörike. He was in the fullest sense a poet of Nature, whose every mood he portrays in his verses. Scarcely less meritorious are his love poems, of which he composed a great number, and which also are animated by an enthusiastic personification and idealization of Nature in the widest sense. Fischer has been called by his admirers “Der schwabische Frauenlob.” Among his principal productions are the following: Gedichte (3d ed. 1883); Aus frischer Luft (2d ed. 1873); Neue Gedichte (1891); Saul, a drama (1862); Friedrich der Zweite von Hohenstaufen, a drama (1863); Kaiser Maximilian von Mexiko, a drama (1868).