'Daniel Georg Morhof' (
February 6,
1639 -
July 30,
1691), was a
German writer and scholar.
He was born at
Wismar. He first studied
jurisprudence and then
literae humaniores at the
University of Rostock, where his elegant
Latin versification procured for him in
1660 the chair of poetry. 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.
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